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Photo by Handy 

Photograph taken at the time of Lincoln's Cooper 
Institute Address in 1860 



(ELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



• < 



EDITED WITH 
INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES 

BY 

HARRY W. HASTINGS, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE 
NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS 

AND 

HAROLD W. THOMPSON, Ph.D< 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE 
NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS 



F. M. AMBROSE AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND BOSTON 

1921 



I1'2\ 



Coptrioht, 1921, 

liY 

F. M. AMBROSE AND CO. 



OCT 22 192! 



©CS.A630012 



FOREWORD 

This book of selections is intended for a variety of uses. We 
hope that it will find a place in high schools, in normal schools, 
and in colleges, and that it will be of service also to the general 
reader who wishes to have in a single volume the best of what 
Lincoln thought and said. 

First, we have aimed to satisfy the requirements of the College 
Entrance . Board, which places Selections from Lincoln upon 
its list of books for classes in literature. In satisfying these 
requirements we have included all the selections specified by the 
Board; but instead of adding another account of Lincoln's 
life to the number already in existence, we have printed at the 
beginning of our volume the most complete of Lincoln's auto- 
biographical sketches, which carries him to the presidential 
campaign of 1860, and have supplied fairly complete chrono- 
logical tables to supplement this. These tables not only show 
events in the life of Lincoln and summarize the history of his 
period, but bring together also the titles of the important literary 
works evoked by the slavery issue during his time. Thus the 
student, observing how much writing and how much legislation 
had its origin in the problems of slavery, will realize that Lin- 
coln merely gave more effective expression than others, both in 
word and deed, to the interest which many had in common. 

Secondly, in making our selections we have tried to supply 
more advanced students, whether of literature or of history, 
with the material necessary for tracing the development of Lin- 
coln's statesmanship. To this end we have arranged our se- 
lections in chronological order, and have worked out a series 
of questions to guide study. We venture the assertion that the 
student who informs himself as to what Lincoln thought upon 
the principles of government and the important issues of his 
day will have an epitome of American history to the end of the 

hi 



iv FOREWORD 

Civil War, and that the wise counsels of the great statesman 
will become 

"a light to guide, a rod 
To check the erring, and reprove." 

Thirdly, no editors could study the controversial and argu- 
mentative work of Lincoln without increased admiration for its 
clearness and cogency. Since we have felt the need in our own 
classrooms of good material for illustrating the merits and the 
defects of argument, we have printed the first Lincoln-Douglas 
debate (omitting Douglas's second speech), and have analyzed 
the arguments of both speakers in series of questions. Douglas's 
speech illustrates almost every fallacy of reasoning, every im- 
pudence, every trick of the public platform ; Lincoln's speeches 
show a sound argumentative method combined with a shrewd 
understanding of what stirs the sympathy and warms the blood 
of honest men. By study of the debate, .by a further study of 
the Cooper Union Speech and the Bloomington Speech, the 
student will come to recognize Lincoln's title to admiration. 

Permission has been given by G. P. Putnam's Sons for the 
use of selections and citations from the set of Lincoln's works 
edited by Lapsley and G. H. Putnam. We are indebted to Mr. 
D. C. French for permission to use a photograph of his statue 
of Lincoln ; also to Gutzon Borglum for permission to use photo- 
graphs of two of his statues. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Photograph Taken at the Time of Lincoln's Cooper 

Institute Address in 1860 . . . Frontispiece 

Lincoln in 1860 ........ 60 

Statue of Lincoln by Daniel C. French, Washing- 
ton, D. C 112 

Lincoln and His Son, " Tad ' 150 

Statue of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum, Newark, N. J. 190 
Bust of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum, Washington, 

D. C 220 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Autobiography (1860) 1 

From Lincoln's First Political Announcement, 

March 9, 1832 13 

Another Early Announcement of Political Views, 

June 13, 1836 14 

The Temperance Revolution, February 22, 1842 . . 16 
Notes for a Law Lecture (c. July, 1850) ... 18 
Selections From the Speech at Peoria, October 16, 

1854 20 

Bloomington Speech, May 29, 1856 .... 25 
Definition of Democracy, August 1, 1858 ... 58 

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 59 

Douglas's Opening Speech, First Debate, August 21, 

1858 61 

Lincoln's Reply, First Debate ..... 75 
From the Second Debate, August 27, 1858 . . .104 
From the Third Debate, September 15/ 1858 . . .111 
From the Last Debate, October 15, 1858 . . .112 
Letter to J. U. Brown, October 18, 1858 . . . 113 
Letter to H. L. Pierce, April 6, 1859 . . .115 
Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860 . .117 
Farewell Address, February 11, 1861 . . .150 
Policies of Government, from Addresses Delivered 
while on his Way to the White House, Febru- 
ary, 1861 151 

Speech in Independence Hall, February 22, 1861 . 153 
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 . . . 155 
The People's Contest, from Message to Congress, 

July 4, 1861 ' . .170 

Labor and Capital, from Annual Message to Con- 
gress, December 3, 1861 172 

v 



VI 



LIX( OLX SELECTIONS 



Letter to General (!. B. McClellan, February 3, 
1862 

Message to Congress Recommending Compensated 

Emancipation, March 6, 1862 
Letter to General G. B. McClellan, May 9, 1862 
Lincoln and Red Tape, August 12, 1862 
Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862 
Reply to a Committee, September 13, 1862 
Letter to Carl Schurz, November 24, 1862 
The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863 
Letter to General J. Hooker, January 26, 1862 
Letter to General U. S. Grant, July 13, 1863 
Letter to James H. Hackett, August 17, 1863 . 
Letter to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863 
From a Letter to C. D. Drake, October 5, 1863 
The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 . 
An Opinion on Property, from a Reply to a Committee 

March 21, 1864 ... . 

Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864 
Letter to Mrs. Horace Mann, April 5, 1864 
Definition of Liberty, from an Address, April 18 

1864 

Messages to General Grant 
Letter, April 30, 1864 . 
Telegram, August 3, 1864 
Telegram, August 17, 1864 
From an Address to the 166th Ohio Regiment, August 

22, 1864 

Reply to a Serenade, November 10, 1864 
Letter to Mrs. Bixby, November 21, 1864 
Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 
Letter to Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865 
Last Public Address, April 11, 1865 
Appendices 

A. Glossary of Political Terms 

B. Chronological Tables 

C. Classroom Suggestions 



I'AriE 



175 



SELECTIONS PROM THE WORKS 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

SHORT AUTOBIOGRAPHY WRITTEN AT THE 
REQUEST OF A FRIEND TO USE IN PRE- 
PARING A POPULAR CAMPAIGN BIOG- 
RAPHY IN THE ELECTION OF 1860 

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, 
then in Hardin, now in the more recently formed county 
of LaRue, Kentucky. His father, Thomas, and 
grandfather, Abraham, were born in Rockingham 
County, Virginia, whither their ancestors had come 
from Berks County, Pennsylvania. His lineage has 
been traced no farther back than this. The family 
were originally Quakers, though in later times they 
have fallen away from the peculiar habits of that people. 
The grandfather, Abraham, had four brothers — Isaac, 
Jacob, John, and Thomas. So far as known, the de- 
scendants of Jacob and John are still in Virginia. Isaac 
went to a place near where Virginia, North Carolina, 
and Tennessee join ; and his descendants are in that 
region. Thomas came to Kentucky, and after many 
years died there, whence his descendants went to Mis- 
souri. Abraham, grandfather of the subject of this 

1 



2 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by Indians 
about the year 1784. He left a widow, three sons, and 
two daughters. The eldest son Mordecai, remained 
in Kentucky till late in life, when he removed to 
Hancock County, Illinois, where soon after he died, 
and where several of his descendants still remain. The 
second son, Josiah, removed at an early day to a place 
on Blue River, now within Hancock County, Indiana, 
but no recent information of him or his family has 
been obtained. The eldest sister, Mary, married Ralph 
Crume, and some of her descendants are now known 
to be in Breckinridge County, Kentucky. The second 
sister, Nancy, married William Brumfield, and her 
family are not known to have left Kentucky, but there 
is no recent information from them. Thomas, the 
youngest son, and father of the present subject, by the 
early death of his father and very narrow circumstances 
of his mother, even in childhood was a wandering 
laboring-boy, and grew up literally without education. 
He never did more in the way of writing than to bun- 
glingly write his own name. Before he was grown he 
passed one year as a hired man with his uncle Isaac 
on Watauga, a branch of the Holston River. Getting 
back into Kentucky, and having reached his twenty- 
eighth year, he married Nancy Hanks — mother of 
the present subject — in the year 1806. She also was 
born in Virginia ; and relatives of hers of the name of 
Hanks, and of other names, now reside in Coles, in 
Macon, and in Adams counties, Illinois, and also in 
Iowa. The present subject has no brother or sister 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 

of the whole or half blood. He had a sister, older 
than himself, who was grown and married, but died 
many years ago, leaving no child ; also a brother, 
younger than himself, who died in infancy. Before 
leaving Kentucky, he and his sister were sent, for short 
periods, to ABC schools, the first kept by Zachariah 
Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel. 

At this time his father resided on Knob Creek, on 
the road from Bardstown, Kentucky, to Nashville, 
Tennessee, at a point three or three and a half miles 
south or southwest of Atherton's Ferry, on the Rolling 
Fork. From this place he removed to what is now 
Spencer County, Indiana, in the autumn of 1816, 
Abraham then being in his eighth year. This removal 
was partly on account of slavery, but chiefly on account 
of the difficulty in land titles in Kentucky. He set- 
tled in an unbroken forest, and the clearing away of 
surplus wood was the great task ahead. Abraham, 
though very young, was large of his age, and had an 
ax put into his hands at once ; and from that till within 
his twenty-third year he was almost constantly han- 
dling that most useful instrument — less, of course, 
in plowing and harvesting seasons. At this place 
Abraham took an early start as a hunter, which was 
never much improved afterward. A few days before 
the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his 
father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new 
log cabin, and Abraham with a rifle-gun, standing in- 
side, shot through a crack and killed one of them. He 
has never since pulled a trigger on any larger game. 



4 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

In the autumn of 1818 his mother died; and a year 
afterward his father married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at 
Elizabethtown, Kentucky, a widow with three children 
of her first marriage. She proved a good and kind 
mother to Abraham, and is still living in Coles County, 
Illinois. There were no children of this second mar- 
riage. His father's residence continued at the same 
place in Indiana till 1830. While here Abraham went 
to ABC schools by littles, kept successively by Andrew 

Crawford, Sweeney, and Azel W. Dorsey. He does 

not remember any other. The family of Mr. Dorsey 
now resides in Schuyler County, Illinois. Abraham 
now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did 
not amount to one year. He was never in a college or 
academy as a student, and never inside of a college or 
academy building till since he had a law license. What 
he has in the way of education he has picked up. After 
he was twenty-three and had separated from his father, 
he studied English grammar — imperfectly, of course, 
but so as to speak and write as well as he now does. 
He studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid 
since he was a member of Congress. He regrets his 
want of education, and does what he can to supply 
the want. In his tenth year he was kicked by a horse, 
and apparently killed for a time. When he was nine- 
teen, still residing in Indiana, he made his first trip upon 
a flatboat to New Orleans. He was a hired hand merely, 
and he and a son of the owner, without other assist- 
ance, made the trip. The nature of part of the " cargo- 
load," as it was called, made it necessary for them to 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 

linger and trade along the sugar-coasl ; and one night 
they were attacked by seven negroes with intent to 
kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the melee, 
but succeeded in driving the negroes from the boat, 
and then "cut cable," "weighed anchor," and left. 

March 1, 1830, Abraham having just completed his 
twenty-first year, his father and family, with the 
families of the two daughters and sons-in-law of his 
stepmother, left the old homestead in Indiana and 
came to Illinois. Their mode of conveyance was 
wagons drawn by ox-teams, and Abraham drove one 
of the teams. They reached the county of Macon, 
and stopped there some time within the same month 
of March. His father and family settled a new place 
on the north side of the Sangamon River, at the junc- 
tion of the timber-land and prairie, about ten miles 
westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log cabin, 
into which they removed, and made sufficient of rails 
to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the 
ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same 
year. These are, or are supposed to be, the rails about 
which so much is being said just now, though these 
are far from being the first or only rails ever made 
by Abraham. 

The sons-in-law were temporarily settled in other 
places in the county. In the autumn all hands were 
greatly afflicted with ague and fever, to which they 
had not been used, and by which they were greatly 
discouraged, so much so that they determined on leaving 
the county. They remained, however, through the 



G LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

succeeding winter,, which was the winter of the very 
celebrated "deep snow" of Illinois. During that 
winter Abraham, together with his stepmother's son, 
John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing in 
Macon County, hired themselves to Denton Offutt to 
take a flatboat from Beardstown, Illinois, to New Or- 
leans ; and for that purpose were to join him — Offutt 
— at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should 
go off. When it did go off, which was about the first 
of March, 1831, the county was so flooded as to make 
traveling by land impracticable; to obviate which 
difficulty they purchased a large canoe, and came down 
the Sangamon River in it. This is the time and the 
manner of Abraham's first entrance into Sangamon 
County. They found Offutt at Springfield, but learned 
from him that he had failed in getting a boat at Beards- 
town. This led to their hiring themselves to him for 
twelve dollars per month each, and getting the timber 
out of the trees and building a boat at Old Sangamon 
town on the Sangamon River, seven miles northwest 
of Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans, 
substantially upon the old contract. 

During this boat-enterprise acquaintance with Offutt, 
who was previously an entire stranger, he conceived 
a liking for Abraham, and believing he could turn him 
to account, he contracted with him to act as clerk for 
him, on his return from New Orleans, in charge of a 
store and mill at New Salem, then in Sangamon, now 
in Menard County. Hanks had not gone to New Or- 
leans, but having a family, and being likely to be de- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7 

tained from home longer than at first expected, had 
turned back from St. Louis. He is the same John 
Hanks who now engineers the ''rail enterprise' 1 at 
Decatur, and is a first cousin to Abraham's mother. 
Abraham's father, with his own family and others men- 
tioned, had, in pursuance of their intention, removed 
from Macon to Coles County. John D. Johnston, 
the stepmother's son, went to them, and Abraham 
stopped indefinitely and for the first time as it were, 
by himself at New Salem, before mentioned. This 
was in July, 1831. Here he rapidly made acquaint- 
ances and friends. In less than a year Offutt's busi- 
ness was failing — had almost failed — when the Black 
Hawk War of 1832 broke out. Abraham joined a 
volunteer company, and, to his own surprise, was elected 
captain of it. He says he has not since had any success 
in life which gave him so much satisfaction. He went 
to the campaign, served near three months, met the 
ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in 
no battle. He now owns, in Iowa, the land upon which 
his own warrants for the service were located. Re- 
turning from the campaign, and encouraged by his 
great popularity among his immediate neighbors, he 
the same year ran for the legislature, and was beaten, — 
his Own precinct, however, casting its votes 277 for 
and 7 against him — and that, too, while he was an 
avowed Clay man, and the precinct the autumn after- 
ward giving a majority of 115 to General Jackson over 
Mr. Clay. This was the only time Abraham was ever 
beaten on a direct vote of the people. He was now 



8 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

without means and out of business, but was anxious 
to remain with his friends who had treated him with 
so much generosity, especially as he had nothing else- 
where to go to. He studied what he should do — 
thought of learning the blacksmith trade — thought 
of trying to study law — rather thought he could not 
succeed at that without a better education. Before 
long, strangely enough, a man offered to sell, and did 
sell, to Abraham and another as poor as himself, an 
old stock of goods upon credit. They opened as mer- 
chants ; and he says that was the store. Of course 
they did nothing but get deeper and deeper in debt. 
He was appointed postmaster at New Salem — the 
office being too insignificant to make his politics an 
objection. The store winked out. The surveyor of 
Sangamon offered to depute to Abraham that portion 
of his work which was within his part of the county. 
He accepted, procured a compass and chain, studied 
Flint and Gibson a little, and went at it. This pro- 
cured bread, and kept soul and body together. The 
election of 1834 came, and he was then elected to the 
legislature by the highest vote cast for any candidate. 
Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law, 
was also elected. During the canvass, in a private 
conversation he encouraged Abraham [to] study law. 
After the election he borrowed books of Stuart, took 
them home with him, and went at it in good earnest. 
He studied with nobody. He still mixed in the sur- 
veying to pay board and clothing bills. When the 
legislature met, the law-books were dropped, but were 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9 

taken up again at the end of the session. He was 
reelected in 1830, 1838, and 1840. In the autumn 
of 1836 he obtained a law license, and on April 15, 1837, 
removed to Springfield, and commenced the practice — ■ 
his old friend Stuart taking him into partnership. 
March 3, 1837, by a protest entered upon the " Illinois 
House Journal" of that date, at pages 817 and 818, 
Abraham, with Dan Stone, another representative 
of Sangamon, briefly defined his position on the slavery 
question ; and so far as it goes, it was then the same 
that it is now. The protest is as follows : 

Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed 
both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, 
the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same. 

They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both 
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of Abolition 
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no 
power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution 
of slavery in the different States. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States has the 
power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless 
at the request of the people of the District. 

The difference between these opinions and those contained in 
the above resolutions is their reason for entering this protest. 

Dan Stone, 

A. Lincoln, 

Representatives from the County of Sangamon. 

In 1838 and 1840, Mr. Lincoln's party voted for 
him as Speaker, but being in the minority he was not 
elected. After 1840 he declined a reelection to the 
legislature. He was on the Harrison electoral ticket 



10 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

in 1840, and on that of Clay in 1844, and spent much 
time and labor in both those canvasses. In November, 
1842, he was married to Mary, daughter of Robert 
S. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. They have three 
living children, all sons, one born in 1843, one in 1850, 
and one in 1853. They lost one, who was born in 1846. 

In 1846 he was elected to the lower House of Congress, 
and served one term only, commencing in December, 
1847, and ending with the inauguration of General 
Taylor, in March, 1849. All the battles of the Mexican 
War had been fought before Mr. Lincoln took his seat 
in Congress, but the American army was still in Mexico, 
and the treaty of peace was not fully and formally 
ratified till the June afterward. Much has been said 
of his course in Congress in regard to this war. A 
careful examination of the "Journal' 5 and "Congres- 
sional Globe' 3 ' shows that he voted for all the supply 
measures that came up, and for all the measures in 
any way favorable to the officers, soldiers, and their 
families, who conducted the war through : with the 
exception that some of these measures passed without 
yeas and nays, leaving no record as to how particular 
men voted. The "Journal" and "Globe" also show 
him voting that the war was unnecessarily and uncon- 
stitutionally begun by the President of the United 
States. This is the language of Mr. Ashmun's amend- 
ment, for which Mr. Lincoln and nearly or quite all 
other Whigs of the House of Representatives voted. 

Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed by 
this vote were briefly that the President had sent Gen- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 11 

eral Taylor into an inhabited part of the country be- 
longing to Mexico, and not to the United States, and 
thereby had provoked the first act of hostility, in fact 
the commencement of the war ; that the place, being 
the country bordering on the east bank of the Rio 
Grande, was inhabited by native Mexicans, born there 
under the Mexican government, and had never sub- 
mitted to, nor been conquered by, Texas or the United 
States, nor transferred to either by treaty ; that al- 
though Texas claimed the Rio Grande as her boundary, 
Mexico had never recognized it, and neither Texas 
nor the United States had ever enforced it ; that there 
was a broad desert between that and the country over 
which Texas had actual control; that the country 
where hostilities commenced, having once belonged 
to Mexico, must remain so until it was somehow legally 
transferred, which had never been done. 

Mr. Lincoln thought the act of sending an armed force 
among the Mexicans was unnecessary, inasmuch as 
Mexico was in no way molesting or menacing the United 
States or the people thereof ; and that it was uncon- 
stitutional, because the power of levying war is vested 
in Congress, and not in the President. He thought 
the principal motive for the act was to divert public 
attention from the surrender of " Fifty-four, forty, or 
fight" to Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary 
question. 

Mr. Lincoln was not a candidate for reelection. This 
was determined upon and declared before he went to 
Washington, in accordance with an understanding 



12 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

among Whig friends, by which Colonel Hardin and 
Colonel Baker had each previously served a single 
term in this same district. 

In 1848, during his term in Congress, he advocated 
General Taylor's nomination for the presidency, in 
opposition to all others, and also took an active part 
for his election after his nomination, speaking a few- 
times in Maryland, near Washington, several times in 
Massachusetts, and canvassing quite fully his own 
district in Illinois, which was followed by a majority 
in the district of over 1500 for General Taylor. 

Upon his return from Congress he went to the practice 
of the law with greater earnestness than ever before. 
In 1852 he was upon the Scott electoral ticket, and did 
something in the way of canvassing, but owing to the 
hopelessness of the cause in Illinois he did less than in 
previous presidential canvasses. 

In 1854 his profession had almost superseded the 
thought of politics in his mind, when the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise aroused him as he had never 
been before. 

In the autumn of that year he took the stump with 
no broader practical aim or object than to secure, if 
possible, the reelection of Hon. Richard Yates to Con- 
gress. His speeches at once attracted a more marked 
attention than they had ever before done. As the 
canvass proceeded he was drawn to different parts of 
the State outside of Mr. Yates's district. He did not 
abandon the law, but gave his attention by turns to 
that and politics. The State agricultural fair was at 



FIRST POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT 13 

Springfield that year, and Douglas was announced to 
speak there. 

In the canvass of 1856 Mr. Lincoln made over fifty 
speeches, no one of which, so far as he remembers, was 
put in print. One of them was made at Galena, but 
Mr. Lincoln has no recollection of any part of it being 
printed ; nor does he remember whether in that speech 
he said anything about a Supreme Court decision. He 
may have spoken upon that subject, and some of the 
newspapers may have reported him as saying what is 
now ascribed to him ; but he thinks he could not have 
expressed himself as represented. 

AN EXCERPT FROM LINCOLN'S FIRST 
POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT 

From an Address to the People of Sangamon County, 

March 9, 1832 

.... Upon the subject of education, not presum- 
ing to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can 
only say that I view it as the most important subject 
which we, as a people, can be engaged in. That every 
man may receive at least a moderate education, and 
thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and 
other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the 
value of our free institutions, appears to be an object 
of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say 
nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived 
from all being able to read the Scriptures and other works, 
both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves. 



14 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

For my part, I desire to see the time when education 
— and by its means morality, sobriety, enterprise, and 
industry — shall become much more general than at 
present ; and should be gratified to have it in my power 
to contribute something to the advancement of any 
measure which might have a tendency to accelerate 
that happy period. 

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. 
Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I 
have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed 
of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their 
esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this 
ambition is yet to be developed. I am young and un- 
known to many of you ; I was born and have ever re- 
mained in the most humble walks of life. I have no 
wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend 
me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the indepen- 
dent voters of the county, and if elected they will have 
conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unre- 
mitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good 
people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the 
background, I have been too familiar with disappoint- 
ments to be very much chagrined. . . . 

ANOTHER EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT OF 
POLITICAL VIEWS 

New Salem, June 13, 1836. 
To the Editor of "The Journal": 

In your paper of last Saturday I see a communica- 
tion, over the signature of "Many Voters," in which 



POLITICAL VIEWS 15 

the candidates who are announced in the "Journal" 
are called upon to "Show their hands." Agreed. 
Here's mine. 

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government 
who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I 
go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who 
pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females). 

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of San- 
gamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as 
those that support me. 

While acting as their representative, I shall be gov- 
erned by their will on all subjects upon which I have 
the means of knowing what their will is; and upon 
all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches 
me will best advance their interests." Whether elected 
or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of 
the public lands to the several States, to enable our 
State, in common with others, to dig canals and con- 
struct railroads without borrowing money and paying 
the interest on it. 

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall 
vote for Hugh L. White for President. 

Very respectfully, 
A. Lincoln. 

1 Compare with this submission to the will of the people, what 
Lincoln said in his message to Congress after his second election to 
the Presidency : " If the people should, by whatever mode or means, 
make it an executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another and 
not I must be their instrument to perform it." 



16 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

THE TEMPERANCE REVOLUTION 

From an Address before the Springfield W ashingtonian 
Temperance Society, February 22, IS %2 

.... Of our political revolution of 76, we are all 
justly proud. It has given us a degree of political 
freedom far exceeding that of any other nation of the 
earth. In it the world has found a solution of the 
long-mooted problem as to the capability of man to 
govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, 
and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty 
of mankind. But, with all these glorious results, past, 
present, and to come, it had its evils too. It breathed 
forth famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire ; and 
long, long after the orphan's cry and the widow's 
wail continued to break the sad silence that ensued. 
These were the price, the inevitable price, paid for 
the blessings it bought. 

Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we 
shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery 
manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed ; in it, more 
of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow 
assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no widows 
weeping. By it, none wounded in feeling, none in- 
jured in interest ; even the dram-maker and dram-seller 
will have glided into other occupations so gradually 
as never to have felt the change, and will stand ready 
to join all others in the universal song of gladness. 
And what a noble ally this to the cause of political 



THE TEMPERANCE REVOLUTION 17 

freedom ; with such an aid its march cannot fail to 
be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in rich 
fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect 
liberty. Happy day when - - all appetites controlled, 
all poisons subdued, all matter subjected — mind, all 
conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of 
the world. Glorious consummation ! Hail, fall of 
fury ! Reign of reason, all hail ! 

And when the victory shall be complete, — when 
there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the 
earth, — how proud the title of that land which may 
truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both 
those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory ! 
How nobly distinguished that people who shall have 
planted and nurtured to maturity both the political 
and moral freedom of their species! 

This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of 
the birthday of Washington ; we are met to celebrate 
this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth 
— long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, 
still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name 
no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add bright- 
ness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington 
is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn 
awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless 
splendor leave it shining on. 



18 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

NOTES FOR A LAW LECTURE 

Written about July 1, 1850 

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as 
much material for a lecture in those points wherein I 
have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately 
successful. The leading rule for a lawyer, as for the 
man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing 
for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let 
your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of 
business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the 
labor pertaining to it which can then be done. When 
you bring a common law-suit, if you have the facts for 
doing so, write the declaration at once. If a law point 
be involved, examine the books, and note the authority 
you rely on upon the declaration itself, where you are 
sure to find it when wanted. The same of defences 
and pleas. In business not likely to be litigated, — 
ordinary collection cases, foreclosures, partitions, and 
the like, — make all examinations of titles, and note 
them and even draft orders and decrees in advance. 
The course has a triple advantage : it avoids omissions 
and neglect, saves your labor when once done, per- 
forms the labor out of court when you have leisure, 
rather than in court when you have not. Extempora- 
neous speaking should be practised and cultivated. 
It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However 
able and faithful he may be in other respects, people 
are slow to bring him business if he cannot make 



NOTES FOR A LAW LECTURE 19 

a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to 
young lawyers than relying too much on speech- 
making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, 
shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, 
his case is a failure in advance. 

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to 
compromise whenever you can. Point out to them 
how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, 
expenses, and waste of time. As a peace-maker the 
lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. 
There will still be business enough. 

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely 
be found than one who does this. Who can be more 
nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the 
register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon 
to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A 
moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which 
should drive such men out of it. 

The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere 
question of bread and butter involved. Properly 
attended to, fuller justice is done to both lawyer and 
client. An exorbitant fee should never be claimed. 
As a general rule, never take your whole fee in advance, 
nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid 
beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if 
you can feel the same interest in the case as if some- 
thing was still in prospect for you, as well as for your 
client. And when you lack interest in the case the job 
will very likely lack skill and diligence in the perform- 
ance. Settle the amount of fee and take a note in 



20 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

advance. Then you will feel that you are working 
for something, and you are sure to do your work faith- 
fully and well. Never sell a fee-note — at least not 
before the consideration service is performed. It 
leads to negligence and dishonesty — negligence by 
losing interest in the case, and dishonesty in refusing 
to refund when you have allowed the consideration 
to fail. 

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are nec- 
essarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we 
consider to what extent confidence and honors are 
reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, 
it appears improbable that their impression of dis- 
honesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression 
is common, almost universal. Let no young man 
choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to 
the popular belief. Resolve to be honest at all events ; 
and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest 
lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. 
Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the 
choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be 
a knave. 

SELECTIONS FROM THE SPEECH AT PEORIA 

October 16, 1854 

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill of Senator Douglas passed in May, 
1854. On October fourth of that year Lincoln assailed the bill 
in a great speech at the State Fair held at Springfield, following 
;i speech delivered there by Douglas on October third. Douglas 
replied on October fifth. Eleven days later Lincoln answered 



THE SPEECH AT PEORIA 21 

in his famous speech a1 Peoria. Douglas then made *a pad with 
Lincoln that neither should speak again in that campaign, — an 
agreement which Douglas violated. 

The Peoria speech has been regarded by historians as one 
of the most important of Lincoln's public addresses, perhaps 
because he nowhere else displays so intimate a knowledge of 
the history of the slavery question. He discusses (1) the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, tracing the effect of slavery upon 
legislation from the formation of the national government to 
the passage of the. Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and (2) the propriety 
of restoring the Missouri Compromise. 

Slavery as a Moral Issue 
.... But one great argument in support of the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise is still to come. That 
argument is " the sacred right of self-government." . . . 
Some poet has said, — 

" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 
At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of 
this quotation, I meet that argument, - - 1 rush in, — 
1 take that bull by the horns. . . . My faith in the 
proposition that each man should do precisely as he 
pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies at the 
foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I 
extend the principle to communities of men as well as 
to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically 
wise as well as naturally just, — politically wise in 
saving us from broils about matters which do not con- 
cern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble 
myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry 
laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is 
right, — absolutely and eternally right; but it has no 
just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I 



22 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

should rather say that whether it has any application 
here depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. 
If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may, 
as a matter of self-government, do just what he pleases 
with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that 
extent a total destruction of self-government to say 
that he, too, shall not govern himself ? When the white 
man governs himself, that is self-government ; but 
when he governs himself and also governs another man, 
that is more than self-government, — that is despotism. 
If the negro is a man, then my ancient faith teaches me 
that "all men are created equal," and that there can 
be no moral right in connection with one man's making 
a slave of another. 

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and 
sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying: "The 
white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern 
themselves, but they are not good enough to govern 
a few miserable negroes!" 

Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are 
and will continue to be as good as the average of people 
elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What I do 
say is that no man is good enough to govern another 
man without that other's consent. I say this is the 
leading principle, — the sheet-anchor of American 
republicanism. 

The Effect of Slavery on Democracy 

.... Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or 
other new Territories, is not a matter of exclusive con- 



THE SPEECH AT PEORIA 23 

cern to the people who may go there. The whole nation 
is interested that the best use shall be made of these 
Territories. We want them for homes of free white 
people. This they cannot be, to any considerable 
extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave 
States are places for poor white people to remove from, 
not to remove to. New free States are the places for 
poor people to go to, and better their condition. For 
this use the nation needs these Territories. 

The Effect of Slavery on the Union 

.... But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving 
measure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much 
as I hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it 
rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would 
consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one. But 
when I go to Union-saving, I must believe, at least, 
that the means I employ have some adaptation to the 
end. To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaptation. 

" It hath no relish of salvation in it." 

It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one thing 
which ever endangers the Union. When it came upon 
us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was looking 
to the forming of new bonds of union, and a long 
course of peace and prosperity seemed to lie before us. 
In the whole range of possibility, there scarcely appears 
to me to have been anything out of which the slavery 
agitation could have been revived, except the very 
project of repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every 



24 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

inch of territory we owned already had a settlement 
of the slavery question, by which all parties were 
pledged to abide. Indeed, there was no uninhabited 
country on the continent which we could acquire, 
if we except some extreme northern regions which are 
wholly out of the question. 

In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself 
could scarcely have invented a way of again setting 
us by the ears but by turning back and destroying the 
peace measures of the past. The counsels of that 
Genius seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Com- 
promise was repealed ; and here we are in the midst 
of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have 
never seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is 
it those who resist the measure, or those who causelessly 
brought it forward and pressed it through, having 
reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would 
be so resisted? It could not but be expected by its 
author that it would be looked upon as a measure for 
the extension of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach 
of faith. 

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the 
naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this 
aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery 
is founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposi- 
tion to it in his love of justice. These principles are in 
eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision 
so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and 
throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal 
the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, re- 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 25 

peal the Declaration of Independence, repeal all past 
history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It 
still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery 
extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his 
heart his mouth will continue to speak. 

BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 

May 29, IS .5 6 

Between 1854 and 1856 old party lines were breaking down, 
and Lincoln, with other liberals, was turning to new allegiances. 
In November, 1854, a month after the Peoria speech, he was 
elected to the General Assembly of Illinois from Sangamon 
County as a Whig, resigning this position shortly to become a 
candidate for the United States Senate on the Whig ticket. 
Although he led on the first ballot, the legislature elected Trum- 
bull, a dark horse ; but Lincoln was consoled by the fact that he 
had forced the election of an Anti-Nebraska senator. As late 
as August, 1855, he writes, ''I think I am a Whig, but others say 
there are no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist." 

On February 22, 1856, a convention of editors was held at 
Decatur to organize the Anti-Nebraska sentiment of the state. 
At a banquet held that night Lincoln discouraged the inten- 
tion of making him the Anti-Nebraska candidate for governor, 
and suggested the nomination of Colonel W. H. Bissell. (This 
suggestion was followed, and Bissell was elected.) Before dis- 
banding, the delegates appointed a State Central Committee 
and decided to call a State Convention at Bloomington on the 
29th of May. On the same day on which the Illinois delegates 
met at Decatur, delegates from several states met at Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, and appointed a National Committee which sum- 
moned the first National Republican Convention to its meeting 
at Philadelphia on the 17th of June. 

The Bloomington convention met at the time appointed, 
adopted a platform, appointed delegates to the National Re- 
publican Convention, nominated a state ticket, and completed 
the work of organizing the Republican Party in Illinois. At the 



26 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

conclusion of business there was some speaking, but the crowd 
remained unresponsive. Finally Lincoln was demanded and 
came forward to speak. Miss Tarbell describes the scene : — 

"He began his speech, then, deeply moved, and with a pro- 
found sense of the importance of the moment. At first he spoke 
slowly and haltingly, but gradually he grew in force and inten- 
sity until his hearers arose from their chairs and with pale faces 
and quivering lips pressed unconsciously towards him. Start- 
ing from the back of the broad platform on which he stood, his 
hands on his hips, he slowly advanced towards the front, his 
eyes blazing, his face white with passion, his voice resonant 
with the force of his conviction. As he advanced he seemed to 
his audience fairly to grow, and when at the end of a period he 
stood at the front line of the stage, hands still on the hips, head 
back, raised on his tiptoes, he seemed like a giant inspired. 'At 
that moment he was the handsomest man I ever saw,' Judge 
Scott declared." 

It must be remembered that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had 
aroused the whole nation. Lincoln had reentered politics be- 
cause he resented the tendency of this bill to spread slavery. 
Only a week before the present speech the. conflict in Kansas 
had reached its worst. Participants and spectators of the riot- 
ing of May 21 at Lawrence were in Lincoln's audience. All 
this afforded a dramatic opportunity for stirring the feelings of 
his hearers which Lincoln did not miss. 

This address is commonly known as the "Lost Speech." In 
1896 Mr. H. C. Whitney, a lawyer present at the convention, 
published the following version based upon notes taken at the 
time of delivery. Newspaper reporters seem to have been too 
intent upon listening to record the speech. 

1. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I was over at 
[cries of " Platform!" "Take the platform!"] — I 
say, that while I was at Danville Court, some of our 
friends of Anti-Nebraska 1 got together in Springfield 
and elected me as one delegate to represent old San- 

1 Those who opposed the bill of Senator Douglas repealing the 
Missouri Compromise of 1820. 



BLOOMIXGTON SPEECH 27 

4 

gamon with them in this convent ion, and I am here 
certainly as a sympathizer in this movement and by 
virtue of that meeting and selection. But we can 
hardly be called delegates strictly, inasmuch as, properly 
speaking, we represent nobody but ourselves. I 
think it altogether fair to say that we have no Anti- 
Nebraska party in Sangamon, although there is a 
good deal of Anti-Nebraska feeling there ; but I say 
for myself, and I think I may speak also for my col- 
leagues, that we who are here fully approve of the 
platform and of all that has been done [A voice : 
"Yes!"]; and even if we are not regularly delegates, 
it will be right for me to answer your call to speak. I 
suppose we truly stand for the public sentiment of 
Sangamon on the great question of the repeal, 1 al- 
though we do not yet represent many numbers who 
have taken a distinct position on the question. 

2. We are in a trying time — it ranges above mere 
party — and this movement to call a halt and turn 
our steps backward needs all the help and good coun- 
sels it can get ; for unless popular opinion makes 
itself very strongly felt, and a change is made in our 
present course, blood will flow on account of Nebraska, 
and brother's hand will be raised against brother! [The 
last sentence was uttered in such an earnest, impres- 
sive, if not, indeed, tragic, manner, as to make a 
cold chill creep over me. Others gave a similar ex- 
perience.] 

3. I have listened with great interest to the earnest 

1 The repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 



28 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

appeal made to Illinois men by the gentleman from 
Lawrence x [James S. Emery] who has just addressed 
us so eloquently and forcibly. I was deeply moved 
by his statement of the wrongs done to free-State men 
out there. I think it just to say that all true men 
North should sympathize with them, and ought to be 
willing to do any possible and needful thing to right 
their wrongs. But we must not promise what we ought 
not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot; 
we must be calm and moderate, and consider the whole 
difficulty, and determine what is possible and just. 
We must not be led by excitement and passion to do 
that which our sober judgments would not approve 
in our cooler moments. We have higher aims ; we will 
have more serious business than to dally with tem- 
poral measures. 

4. We are here to stand firmly for a principle — to 
stand firmly for a right. We know that great polit- 
ical and moral wrongs are done, and outrages com- 
mitted, and we denounce those wrongs and outrages, 
although we cannot, at present, do much more. But 
we desire to reach out beyond those personal out- 

1 Lawrence, Kansas, settled in 1854 by the Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany of Massachusetts which had been formed to settle Kansas with 
anti-slavery colonies. The anti-slavery towns were Lawrence, To- 
peka, Manhattan, Waubunsee, Hampden, Ossawatomie ; the pro- 
slavery towns, Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton, Kickapoo. 
Lawrence was the scene of continual struggles between its citizens 
and pro-slavery men of the adjacent country. On May 21, 1856, 
the town was sacked by a sheriff's posse of seven hundred and fifty 
men, sympathizers with the slavery faction in Kansas. This event 
and the assault on Senator Sumner on the day following greatly 
stirred the North. 



BLOOMIXGTON SPEECH 29 

rages and establish a rule that will apply to all, and so 
prevent any future outrages. 

5. We have seen to-day that every shade of popular 
opinion is represented here, with Freedom or rather 
Free Soil 1 as the basis. We have come together as 
in some sort representatives of popular opinion against 
the extension of slavery into territory now free in fact 
as well as by law, and the pledged word of the states- 
men of the nation who are now no more. We come — 
we are here assembled together — to protest as well as 
we can against a great wrong, and to take measures, 
as well as we now can, to make that wrong right ; to 
place the nation, as far as it may be possible now, as 
it was before the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; 
and the plain way to do this is to restore the Com- 
promise, and to demand and determine that Kansas 
shall be free! 2 [Immense applause.] While we affirm, 
and reaffirm, if necessary, our devotion to the prin- 
ciples of the Declaration of Independence, let our 
practical work here be limited to the above. We know 
that there is not a perfect agreement of sentiment here 
on the public questions which might be rightfully con- 
sidered in this convention, and that the indignation 
which we all must feel cannot be helped ; but all of 
us must give up something for the good of the cause. 
There is one desire which is uppermost in the mind, 

1 The next sentence defines the broader meaning of this phrase. 
Many of Lincoln's auditors had previously been members of the 
Free Soil Party, formed at the close of the Mexican War. See Ap- 
pendix A. 

2 This became a party slogan. 



30 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

one wish common to us all — to which no dissent will 
be made ; and I counsel you earnestly to bury all re- 
sentment, to sink all personal feeling, make all things 
work to a common purpose in which we are united and 
agreed about, and which all present will agree is abso- 
lutely necessary — which must be done by any right- 
ful mode if there be such : Slavery must be kept out of 
Kansas! [Applause.] The test — the pinch — is right 
there. If we lose Kansas to freedom, an example 
will be set which will prove fatal to freedom in the 
end. We, therefore, in the language of the Bible, 
must "lay the axe to the root of the tree." Temporiz- 
ing will not do longer ; now is the time for decision — 
for firm, persistent, resolute action. [Applause.] 

6. The Nebraska bill, or rather Nebraska law, is not 
one of wholesome legislation, but was and is an act of 
legislative usurpation, whose result, if not indeed inten- 
tion, is to make slavery national ; and unless headed off 
in some effective way, we are in a fair way to see this 
land of boasted freedom converted into a land of slavery 
in fact. [Sensation.] Just open your two eyes, and 
see if this be not so. I need do no more than state, 
to command universal approval, that almost the entire 
North, as well as a large following in the border States, 
is radically opposed to the planting of slavery in free 
territory. Probably in a popular vote throughout 
the nation nine-tenths of the voters in the free States, 
and at least one-half in the border States, if they could 
express their sentiments freely, would vote NO on 
such an issue ; and it is safe to say that two-thirds of the 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 31 

votes of the entire nation would be opposed to it. And 
yet, in spite of this overbalancing of sentiment in this 
free country, we are in a fair way to see Kansas present 
itself for admission as a slave State. Indeed, it is a 
felony, by the local law of Kansas, to deny that slavery 
exists there even now. By every principle of law, a 
negro in Kansas is free ; yet the bogus legislature makes 
it an infamous crime to tell him that he is free ! 

7. The party lash and the fear of ridicule will over- 
awe justice and liberty ; for it is a singular fact, but 
none the less a fact, and well known by the most 
common experience, that men will do things under 
the terror of the party lash that they would not on any 
account or for any consideration do otherwise ; while 
men who will march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon 
without shrinking, will run from the terrible name of 
"Abolitionist," even when pronounced by a worth- 
less creature whom they, with good reason, despise. 
For instance — to press this point a little — Judge 
Douglas introduced his Anti-Nebraska bill l in January ; 
and we had an extra session of our legislature in the 
succeeding February, in which were seventy-five Demo- 
crats ; and at a party caucus, fully attended, there were 
just three votes out of the whole seventy-five, for the 
measure. But in a few days orders came on from 
Washington, commanding them to approve the measure ; 
the party lash was applied, and it was brought up again 
in caucus, and passed by a large majority. The masses 
were against it, but party necessity carried it ; and it 

1 The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. 



32 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

was passed through the lower house of Congress against 
the will of the people, for the same reason. Here is 
where the greatest danger lies — that, while we profess 
to be a government of law and reason, law will give 
way to violence on demand of this awful and crushing 
power. Like the great Juggernaut l — I think that 
is the name — the great idol, it crushes everything 
that comes in its way, and makes a — or as I read once, 
in a black-letter law book, a a slave is a human being 
who is legally not a person, but a thing." And if the 
safeguards to liberty are broken down, as is now at- 
tempted, when they have made things of all the free 
negroes, how long, think you, before they will begin to 
make things of poor white men? [Applause.] Be not 
deceived. Revolutions do not go backward. The 
founder of the Democratic Party declared that all men 
were created equal. His successor in the leadership 
has written the word "white" before men, making it 
read "all white men are created equal." 2 Pray, will 
or may not the Know-nothings, 3 if they should get 
in power, add the word "protestant," making it read 
"all protestant white men"? 

8. Meanwhile the hapless negro is the fruitful subject 
of reprisals in other quarters. John Pettit, 4 whom Tom 
Benton - paid his respects to, you will recollect, calls 

1 Idol of the Hindu god Krishna at Puri, dragged in procession 
on* a huge car under the wheels of which devotees are said to have 
thrown themselves. 

2 The contention of Senator Douglas ; see, for example, his open- 
ing speech in the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate. 

3 See Appendix A. 

4 Pettit( 1807-1877) was a Democratic member of the United States 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 33 

the immortal Declaration "a self-evident lie"; while 
at the birth-place of freedom — in the shadow of Bunker 
Hill and of the "cradle of liberty," at the home of the 
Adamses and Warren and Otis — Choate, 1 from our 
side of the house, dares to fritter away the birthday 
promise of liberty by proclaiming the Declaration to 
be " a string of glittering generalities ' ' ; and the Southern 
Whigs, working hand in hand with pro-slavery Demo- 
crats, are making Choate's theories practical. Thomas 
Jefferson, a slaveholder, mindful of the moral element 
in slavery, solemnly declared that he "trembled for 
his country when he remembered that God is just"; 
while Judge Douglas, with an insignificant wave of the 
hand, "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
down." 2 Now, if slavery is right, or even negative, 
he has a right to treat it in this trifling manner. But if 
it is a moral and political wrong, as all Christendom 
considers it to be, how can he answer to God for this 
attempt to spread and fortify it? [Applause.] 

9. But no man, and Judge Douglas no more than 
any other, can maintain a negative, or merely neutral, 

Senate from Indiana, 1853-1855 ; in 1859 he was appointed by 
President Buchanan Chief Justice of Kansas. Benton (1782-1858) 
of Missouri was a prominent Democratic statesman who opposed 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill ; however, he supported Buchanan for 
the presidency in 1856 against his own son-in-law, Fremont, the 
Republican candidate. 

1 Rufus Choate (1799-1859), the United States Senator from 
Massachusetts, 1841-1845, opposed the annexation of Texas but sup- 
ported Buchanan in 185G. 

2 This was the attitude of Senator Douglas. His indifference 
toward the moral question involved in the slavery issue was attacked 
by Lincoln in the joint debates of 1858. 



34 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

position on this question; and, accordingly, he avows 
that the Union was made by white men and for white 
men and their descendants. As a matter of fact, the 
first branch of the proposition is historically true ; the 
government was made by white men, and they were 
and are the superior race. This I admit. But the 
corner-stone of the government, so to speak, was the 
declaration that "all men are created equal," and all 
entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
[Applause.] 

10. And not only so, but the framers of the Consti- 
tution were particular to keep out of that instrument 
the word " slave," the reason being that slavery would 
ultimately come to an end, and they did not wish to 
have any reminder that in this free country human 
beings were ever prostituted to slavery. [Applause.] 
Nor is it any argument that we are superior and the 
negro inferior — that he has but one talent while we 
have ten. Let the negro possess the little he has in 
independence; if he has but one talent, he should be 
permitted to keep the little he has. [Applause.] But 
slavery will endure no test of reason or logic ; and yet 
its advocates, like Douglas, use a sort of bastard logic, 
or noisy assumption, it might better be termed, like 
the above, in order to prepare the mind for the gradual, 
but none the less certain, encroachments of the Moloch l 
of slavery upon the fair domain of freedom. But how- 
ever much you may argue upon it, or smother it in 
soft phrases, slavery can only be maintained by force 

1 A Canaanite idol to which children were sacrificed. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 35 

— by violence. The repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise was by violence. It was a violation of both 
law and the sacred obligations of honor, to overthrow 
and trample underfoot a solemn compromise, obtained 
by the fearful loss to freedom of one of the fairest of 
our Western domains. 1 Congress violated the will 
and confidence of its constituents in voting for the bill ; 
and while public sentiment, as shown by the elections 
of 1854, 2 demanded the restoration of this compromise, 
Congress violated its trust by refusing, simply because 
it had the force of numbers to hold on to it. And mur- 
derous violence is being used now, in order to force 
slavery on to Kansas ; for it cannot be done in any other 
way. [Sensation.] 

11. The necessary result was to establish the rule of 
violence — force, instead of the rule of law and reason; 
to perpetuate and spread slavery, and, in time, to make 
it general. . We see it at both ends of the line. In 
Washington, on the very spot where the outrage was 
started, the fearless Sumner 3 is beaten to insensibility, 

1 Missouri, which, in accordance with the Compromise of 1820, 
entered the Union as a slave State. 

2 Lincoln's interpretation of such elections as those held in Con- 
necticut in April, 1864, when the Democrats failed to elect the State 
Legislature and the governor. 

3 Charles Sumner (1811-1874) made his first anti-slavery speech 
In Faneuil Hall, Boston, on November 4, 1845 ; opposed the Mexican 
War ; helped to organize the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts in 
1848 ; was elected to the United States Senate by Free Soilers and 
Democrats in January, 1851 ; made a speech on "Freedom National, 
Slavery Sectional" on August 20, 1852; opposed the Kansas-Ne- 
braska Bill in 1854. On May 19-20, 1856, he made his famous 
"Crime against Kansas" speech. Two days later Representative 
Preston Smith Brooks of South Carolina brutally beat him into 



36 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

and is now slowly dying ; while senators who claim to 
be gentlemen and Christians stood by, countenancing 
the act, and even applauding it afterward in their 
places in the Senate. Even Douglas, our man, saw 
it all and was within helping distance, yet let the mur- 
derous blows fall unopposed. Then, at the other end 
of the line, at the very time Sumner was being murdered, 
Lawrence was being destroyed for the crime of Freedom. 
It was the most prominent stronghold of liberty in 
Kansas, and must give way to the all-dominating power 
of slavery. Only two days ago, Judge Trumbull l 
found it necessary to propose a bill in the Senate to 
prevent a general civil war and to restore peace in 
Kansas. 

12. We live in the midst of alarms ; anxietv beclouds 
the future ; we expect some new disaster with each 
newspaper we read. Are we in a healthful political 
state? Are not the tendencies plain? Do not the 
signs of the times point plainly the ways in which we 
are going? [Sensation.] 

13. In the early days of the Constitution slavery was 
recognized, by South and North alike, as an evil, and 

unconsciousness while he was sitting at his desk in the Senate. The 
House did not expel Brooks ; he resigned and was unanimously re- 
elected. As a result of his injuries, Sumner was absent from his 
seat in the Senate for nearly four years. During the Civil War*he 
was chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. 

1 United States Senator from Illinois, chosen in 1855 by the State 
Legislature. He was elected on the tenth ballot, though on the 
first ballot the vote stood: — Lincoln 44, Shields (Democrat) 41, 
Trumbull (Anti-Nebraska) 5. Previously Trumbull had been a 
member of the Democratic Party. See also the first Lincoln-Douglas 
Debate. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 37 

the division of sentiment about it was not controlled 
by geographical lines or considerations of climate, 
but by moral and philanthropic views. Petitions for 
the abolition of slavery were presented to the very first 
Congress by Virginia and Massachusetts alike. 1 To 
show the harmony which prevailed, I will state thai a 
fugitive-slave law was passed in 1793, 2 with no dissent- 
ing voice in the Senate, and but seven dissenting 
votes in the House. It was, however, a wise law, 
moderate, and, under the Constitution, a just one. 
Twenty-five years later, a more stringent law was 
proposed and defeated; and thirty-five years after 
that, the present law, drafted by Mason of Virginia, 
was passed by Northern votes. I am not, just now, 
complaining of this law, but I am trying to show how 
the current sets ; for the proposed law of 1817 was far 
less offensive than the present one. In 1774 the Con- 
tinental Congress pledged itself, without a dissenting 
vote, to wholly discontinue the slave trade, and to 
neither purchase nor import any slave : and less than 
three months before the passage of the Declaration of 
Independence, the same Congress which adopted that 
declaration unanimously resolved "that no slave be 
imported into any of the thirteen United Colonies" 
[Great applause.] 

14. On the second day of July, 1776, the draft of a 
Declaration of Independence was reported to Congress 
bv the committee, and in it the slave trade was char- 

1 The Quakers presented a similar petition to the first Congress. 

2 This law was operative until the Clay Compromise of 1850. 



38 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

acterized as "an execrable commerce," as "a piratical 

warfare/' as the "opprobrium of infidel powers," and 
as "a cruel war against human nature." [Applause.] 
All agreed on this except South Carolina and Georgia, 
and in order to preserve harmony, and from the ne- 
cessity of the case, these expressions were omitted. 
Indeed, abolition societies existed as far south as Vir- 
ginia ; and it is a well-known fact that Washington, 
Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Henry, Mason, and Pendle- 
ton * were qualified Abolitionists, and much more 
radical on that subject than we of the Whig and Demo- 
cratic parties claim to be to-day. On March 1, 1784, 
Virginia ceded to the confederation all its lands lying 
northwest of the Ohio River. Jefferson, Chase of 
Maryland, and Howell of Rhode Island, as a committee 
on that and territory thereafter to be ceded, reported 
that no slavery should exist after the year 1800. Had 
this report been adopted, not only the Northwest, but 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi also 
would have been free ; but it required the assent of 
nine states to ratify it. North Carolina was divided, 
and thus its vote was lost ; and Delaware, Georgia, and 
New Jersey refused to vote. In point of fact, as it 
was, it was assented to by six States. Three years 
later, on a square vote to exclude slavery from the 
Northwest, only one vote, and that from New York, 
was against it. And yet, thirty-seven years later, five 
thousand citizens of Illinois out of a voting mass of 
less than twelve thousand, deliberately, after a long and 

1 All citizens of Virginia. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 39 

heated contest, voted to introduce slavery in Illinois; 
and, to-day, a large party in the free State of Illinois 
are willing to vote to fasten the shackles of slavery on 
the fair domain of Kansas, notwithstanding it received 
the dowry of freedom long before its birth as a political 
community. I repeat, therefore, the question, Is it 
not plain in what direction we are tending? [Sensa- 
tion.] In the colonial time, Mason, Pendleton, and 
Jefferson were as hostile to slavery in Virginia as Otis, 
Ames, and the Adamses were in Massachusetts; and 
Virginia made as earnest an effort to get rid of it as old 
Massachusetts did. But circumstances were against 
them and they failed; but not that the good-will of 
its leading men was lacking, "^et within less than 
fifty years Virginia changed its tune, and made negro- 
breeding for the cotton and sugar States one of its 
leading industries. [Laughter and applause.] 

15. In the Constitutional Convention, George Mason 
of Virginia made a more violent abolition speech than 
my friends Lovejoy 1 or Codding * would desire to make 
here to-day — a speech which could not be safely re- 
peated anywhere on Southern soil in this enlightened 
year. But while there were some differences of opinion 
on this subject even then, discussion was allowed ; but 

1 Owen Lovejoy (1811-1864), brother of the murdered Elijah P. 
Lovejoy, was an abolition leader elected to the Illinois legislature 
in. 1854, and to Congress in 1856 where he served until his death. 
Ichabod Codding (1811-1866) was a fiery speaker for the abolition 
cause when only a student in Middlebury College ; for some time 
he was agent and lecturer of the Anti-Slavery Society in Now York 
and New England. He moved West in 1842, became a Congrega- 
tional clergyman, and held pastorates in several towns in Illinois. 



40 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

as you see by the Kansas slave code, which, as you 
know, is the Missouri slave code, merely ferried across 
the river, it is a felony to even express an opinion hostile 
to that foul blot in the land of Washington and the 
Declaration of Independence. [Sensation.] 

16. In Kentucky — my State — in 1849, on a test 
vote, the mighty influence of Henry Clay x and many 
other good men there could not get a symptom of ex- 
pression in favor of gradual emancipation on a plain 
issue of marching toward the light of civilization with 
Ohio and Illinois; but the State of Boone 2 and Hardin 2 
and Henry Clay, with a nigger under each arm, took 
the black trail toward the deadly swamps of barbarism. 
Is there — can there be — any doubt about this thing ? 
And is there any doubt that we must all lay aside our 
prejudices and march, shoulder to shoulder, in the 
great army of Freedom? [Applause.] 

17. Every Fourth of July our young orators all pro- 
claim this to be "the land of the free and the home of 
the brave!' 1 Well, now, when you orators get that 
off next year, and, may be, this very year, how would 
you like some old grizzled farmer to get up in the grove 
and deny it? [Laughter.] How would you like that? 

1 Henry Clay (1777-1852) was for many years Speaker of the 
national House of Representatives and later United States Senator, 
from Kentucky ; supported the Missouri Compromise of 1820 ; was 
a candidate for the Presidency in 1824, 1832, and 1844 ; was Secre- 
tary of State under J. Q. Adams ; introduced the Compromise of 
1833 to prevent nullification by South Carolina; in his "Raleigh 
letter" of 1844 opposed the annexation of Texas; introduced the 
Compromise of 1850. 

2 Daniel Boone (1735-1820) and John Hardin (1753-1792) were 
famous Kentucky pioneers. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 41 

But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave Stale, and all 
the "border ruffians" have barbecues about it, and 
free-State men come trailing back to the dishonored 
North, like whipped dogs with their tails between their 
legs, it is — ain't it? — evident that this is no more 
the "land of the free" ; and if we let it go so, we won't 
dare to say "home of the brave" out loud. [Sensation 
and confusion.] 

18. Can any man doubt that, even in spite of the 
people's will, slavery will triumph through violence, 
unless that will be made manifest and enforced ? Even 
Governor Reeder 1 claimed at the outset that the con- 
test in Kansas was to be fair, but he got his eyes open 
at last ; and I believe that, as a result of this moral and 
physical violence, Kansas will soon apply for admission 
as a slave State. And yet we can't mistake that the 
people don't want it so, and that it is a land which is 
free both by natural and political law. No law is free 
law! Such is the understanding of all Christendom. 
In the Somerset case, decided nearly a century ago, 
the great Lord Mansfield held that slavery was of such 
a nature that it must take its rise in positive (as dis- 
tinguished from natural) law ; and that in no country, 
or age could it be traced back to any other source. 
Will some one please tell me where is the positive law 

1 Andrew H. Reeder (1807-1864) a Pennsylvania Democrat, 
was appointed the first governor of Kansas Territory in 1854 ; dis- 
missed by President Pierce, he became a resident of Lawrence, Kansas, 
and was elected a delegate to Congress. In Jiily, 1856, a legislature 
formed of the Free State Party under the Topeka constitution elected 
him to the United States Senate, but he was not permitted to take 
his seat. He was present in Lincoln's audience. 



42 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

that establishes slavery in Kansas? [A voice: "The 
bogus laws."] Aye, the bogus laws! 1 And, on the 
same principle, a gang of Missouri horse-thieves could 
come into Illinois and declare horse-stealing to be legal 
[Laughter], and it would be just as legal as slavery is in 
Kansas. But by express statute, in the land of Wash- 
ington and Jefferson, we may soon be brought face to 
face with the discreditable fact of showing to the world 
by our acts that we prefer slavery to freedom — dark- 
ness to light ! [Sensation.] 

19. It is, I believe, a principle in law that when one 
party to a contract violates it so grossly as to chiefly 
destroy the object for which it is made, the other party 
may rescind it. I will ask Browning 2 if that ain't good 
law. [Voices. "Yes!"] Well, now if that be right, 
I go for rescinding the whole, entire Missouri Compro- 
mise and thus turning Missouri into a free State ; and 
I should like to know the difference — should like for 
any one to point out the difference — between our 
making a free State of Missouri and their making 
a slave State of Kansas. [Great applause.] There 
ain't one bit of difference, except that our way would 
be a great mercy to humanity. But I have never said 
— and the Whig Party has never said — and those 
who oppose the Nebraska bill do not as a body say, 

1 Laws passed with the support of citizens of Missouri, known as 
"border ruffians," who fraudulently voted in Kansas elections in 
support of the pro-slavery faction. 

2 Orville H. Browning (1810-1881), a prominent Illinois lawyer 
and politician, who assisted Lincoln to organize the Republican 
Party at the Blooming ton Convention. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 43 

hat they have any intention of interfering with slavery 
n the slave States. Our platform says just the con- 
trary. We allow slavery to exist in the slave States — 
lot because slavery is right or good, but from the ne- 
lessities of our Union. We grant a fugitive-slave law 
)ecause it is so " nominated in the bond"; because 
>ur fathers so stipulated — had to - - and we are bound 
o carry out this agreement. But they did not agree 
,o introduce slavery in regions where it did not pre- 
viously exist. On the contrary, they said by their 
example and teachings that they did not deem it ex- 
>edient — did not consider it right — to do so ; and 
t is wise and right to do just as they did about it 
Voices: "Good!"], and that is what we propose - 
lot to interfere with slavery where it exists (we have 
lever tried to do it), and to give them a reasonable 
tnd efficient fugitive-slave law. [A voice: "No!"] 
'. say YES ! [Applause.] It was part of the bargain, 
md I'm for living up to it ; but I go no further ; I'm 
lot bound to do more, and I won't agree any further. 
Great applause.] 

20. We, here in Illinois, should feel especially proud 
)f the provision of the Missouri Compromise excluding 
slavery from what is now Kansas ; for an Illinois man, 
[esse B. Thomas, was its father. Henry Clay, who is 
credited with the authorship of the Compromise in 
general terms, did not even vote for that provision, 
:>ut only advocated the ultimate admission by a second 
compromise ; and, Thomas was, beyond all controversy, 
:he real author of the "slaverv restriction" branch of 



44 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

the Compromise. T< > show the generosity of the North- 
ern members toward the Southern side : on a test vote 
to exclude slavery from Missouri, ninety voted not to 
exclude, and eighty-seven to exclude, every vote from 
the slave States being ranged with the former and four- 
teen votes from the free States, of whom seven were 
from New England alone ; while on a vote to exclude 
slavery from what is now Kansas, the vote was one 
hundred and thirty-four for to forty-two against. 
The scheme, as a whole, was, of course, a Southern 
triumph. It is idle to contend otherwise, as is now 
being done by the Nebraskaites ; it was so shown by 
the votes and quite as emphatically by the expressions 
of representative men. Mr. Lowndes of South Caro- 
lina w T as never known to commit a political mistake; 
his was the great judgment of that section; and he 
declared that this measure " would restore tranquillity 
to the country - - a result demanded by every con- 
sideration of discretion, of moderation, of wisdom, 
and of virtue." When the measure came before Presi- 
dent Monroe for his approval, he put to each member 
of his cabinet this question: "Has Congress the con- 
stitutional power to prohibit slavery in a territory?' 
And John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford from 
the South, equally with John Quincy Adams, Benjamin 
Rush, and Smith Thompson from the North, alike an- 
swered, "Yes!" without qualification or equivocation; 
and this measure, of so great consequence to the South, 
was passed ; and Missouri was, by means of it, finally 
enabled to knock at the door of the Republic for an 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 45 

Dpen passage to its brood of slaves. And, in spite 
:>f this, Freedom's share is about to be taken by violence 
— by the force of misrepresentative votes, not called 
'or by the popular will. What name can I, in common 
iecency, give to this wicked transaction? [Sensation.] 
21. But even then the contest was not over ; for when 
[he Missouri constitution came before Congress for its 
ipproval, it forbade any free negro or mulatto from 
entering the State. In short, our Illinois " black laws" 
were hidden away in their constitution [Laughter], 
md the controversy was thus revived. Then it was 
that Mr. Clay's talents shone out conspicuously, and 
the controversy that shook the Union to its foundation 
was finally settled to the satisfaction of the conserva- 
tive parties on both sides of the line, though not to the 
sxtremists on either, and Missouri was admitted by 
the small majority of six in the lower House. How 
great a majority, do you think, would have been given 
had Kansas also been secured for slavery ? [A voice : 
"A majority the other way."] "A majority the other 
way," is answered. Do you think it would have been 
safe for a Northern man to have confronted his con- 
stituents after having voted to consign both Missouri 
and Kansas to hopeless slavery? And yet this man 
Douglas, who misrepresents his constituents, and who 
has exerted his highest talents in that direction, will 
be carried in triumph through the State, and hailed 
with honour while applauding that act. [Three groans 
for "Dug!"] And this shows whither we are tending. 
This thing of slavery is more powerful than its sup- 



46 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

porters — even than the high priests that minister at its 
altar. It debauches even our greatest men. It gathers 
strength, like a rolling snow-ball, by its own infamy. 
Monstrous crimes are committed in its name by per- 
sons collectively which they would not dare to commit 
as individuals. Its aggressions and encroachments 
almost surpass belief. In a despotism, one might not 
wonder to see slavery advance steadily and remorse- 
lessly into new dominions ; but is it not wonderful, 
is it not even alarming, to see its steady advance in a 
land dedicated to the proposition that "all men are 
created equal ' ' ? [Sensation.] 

22. It yields nothing itself; it keeps all it has, and 
gets all it can besides. It really came dangerously 
near securing Illinois in 1824 ; it did get Missouri in 
1821. The first proposition was to admit what is now 
Arkansas and Missouri as one slave State. But the 
territory was divided, and Arkansas came in, without 
serious question, as a slave State ; and afterward Mis- 
souri, not as a sort of equality, free, but also as a slave 
State. Then we had Florida and Texas ; and now 
Kansas is about to be forced into the dismal procession. 
[Sensation.] And so it is wherever you look. We 
have not forgotten — it is but six years since — how 
dangerously near California came to being a slave 
State. Texas is a slave State, 1 and four other slave 

1 Texas was annexed in December, 1845, as a slave State. The 
Southern Democrats hoped that it might ultimately be divided into 
five states, each, of course, with two Senators. Later, however, 
Texas refused to be divided, thus preventing the increase in the 
number of pro-slavery Senators which the South desired. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 47 

States may be carved from its vast domain. And, 
yet, in the year 1829, slavery was abolished through- 
out that vast region by a royal decree of the then 
sovereign of Mexico. Will you please tell me by what 
right slavery exists in Texas to-day? By the same 
right as, and no higher or greater than, slavery is seek- 
ing dominion in Kansas : by political force — peaceful, 
if that will suffice ; by the torch (as in Kansas) 1 and 
the bludgeon (as in the Senate chamber), 1 if required. 
And so history repeats itself ; and even as slavery has 
kept its course by craft, intimidation, and violence 
in the past, so it will persist, in my judgment, until 
met and dominated by the will of a people bent on its 
restriction. 

23. We have, this very afternoon, heard bitter de- 
nunciations of Brooks in Washington, and Titus, String- 
fellow, Atchison, Jones, and Shannon 2 in Kansas — 
the battle-ground of slavery. I certainly am not going 
to advocate or shield them ; but they and their acts 
are but the necessary outcome of the Nebraska law. 
We should reserve our highest censure for the authors 
of the mischief, and not for the catspaws which they 
use. I believe it was Shakespeare who said, " Where 
the offence lies, there let the axe fall"; and, in my 
opinion, this man Douglas and the Northern men in 
Congress who advocate " Nebraska" are more guilty 

1 A reference to the burning of the Eldridge House, a hotel in 
Lawrence, Kansas, owned by the Emigrant Aid Company, and to 
Brooks's attack on Sumner in the Senate of the United States. The 
first occurred on May 21 and the second on May 22, 1856. 

2 Pro-slavery leaders prominent in the Kansas riots. 



48 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

than a thousand Joneses and Stringfellows, with all 
their murderous practices, can be. [Applause.] 

24. We have made a good beginning here to-day. 
As our Methodist friends would say, "I feel it is good 
to be here." While extremists may find some fault 
with the moderation of our platform, they should recol- 
lect that "the battle is not always to the strong, nor 
the race to the swift," In grave emergencies, modera- 
tion is generally safer than radicalism; and as this 
struggle is likely to be long and earnest, we must not, 
by our action, repel any who are in sympathy with us 
in the main, but rather win all that we can to our stand- 
ard. We must not belittle nor overlook the facts 
of our condition — that we are new and comparatively 
weak, while our enemies are entrenched and relatively 
strong. They have the administration and the po- 
litical power ; and, right or wrong, at present they have 
the numbers. Our friends who urge an appeal to arms 
with so much force and eloquence, should recollect 
that the government is arrayed against us, 1 and that 
the numbers are now arrayed against us as well ; or, to 
state it nearer to the truth, they are not yet expressly 
and affirmatively for us; and we should repel friends 
rather than gain them by anything savoring of revo- 
lutionary methods. As it now stands, we must appeal 
to the sober sense and patriotism of the people. We 
will make converts day by day; we will grow strong 
by calmness and moderation; we will grow strong 

1 Franklin Pierce, Democrat, of New Hampshire, President 
1853-1857, a sympathizer with the slavery party, gave much assist- 
ance to the party in Kansas. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 49 

by the violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, 
unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, 
we will be in the majority after a while, and then the 
revolution which we will accomplish will be none the 
less radical from being the result of pacific measures. 
The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. 
Slavery is a violation of the eternal right. We have 
temporized with it from the necessities of our condi- 
tion ; but as sure as God reigns and school children read, 

THAT BLACK FOUL LIE CAN NEVER BE CONSECRATED INTO 

God's hallowed truth ! [Immense applause lasting 
some time.] One of our greatest difficulties is, that 
men who know that slavery is a detestable crime and 
ruinous to the nation, are compelled, by our peculiar 
condition and other circumstances, to advocate it 
concretely, though damning it in the raw. Henry Clay 
was a brilliant example of this tendency ; others of our 
purest statesmen are compelled to do so ; and thus 
slavery secures actual support from those who detest 
it at heart. Yet Henry Clay perfected and forced 
through the Compromise which secured to slavery a 
great State as well as a political advantage. Not that 
he hated slavery less, but that he loved the whole 
Union more. As long as slavery profited by his great 
Compromise, the hosts of pro-slavery could not suffi- 
ciently cover him with praise ; but now that this Com- 
promise stands in their way — 

". . . they never mention him, 
His name is never heard ; 
Their lips are now forbid to speak 
That once familiar word." 



50 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

25. They have slaughtered one of his most cherished 
measures, and his ghost would arise to rebuke them. 
[Great applause.] 

26. Now, let us harmonize, my friends, and appeal 
to the moderation and patriotism of the people : to the 
sober second thought ; to the awakened public con- 
science. The repeal of the sacred Missouri Compromise 
has installed the weapons of violence : the bludgeon, 
the incendiary torch, the death-dealing rifle, the bristling 
cannon — the weapons of kingcraft of the inquisition, 
of ignorance, of barbarism, of oppression. We see its 
fruits in the dying bed of the heroic Sumner; in the 
ruins of the "Free State" hotel ; in the smoking embers 
of the Herald of Freedom ;■ l in the free-State Governor 
of Kansas chained to a stake on freedom's soil like a 
horse-thief, for the crime of freedom. 2 [Applause.] 
We see it in Christian statesmen, and Christian news- 
papers, and Christian pulpits, applauding the cowardly 
act of a low bully, who crawled upon his victim be- 
hind HIS BACK AND DEALT THE DEADLY BLOW. [Sen-. 

sation and applause.] We note our political demoral- 
ization in the catch-words that are coming into such 
common use; on the one hand, "freedom-shriekers," 
and sometimes "freedom-screechers" [Laughter]; and, 
on the other hand, "border ruffians, " and that fully 

1 A newspaper office destroyed in the attack on Lawrence, May 
21, 1856. 

2 In May, 1856, Governor Robinson was indicted for treason by a 
grand jury of pro-slavery sympathies ; he was arbitrarily arrested 
at Lexington, Missouri, and was then taken to Lecompton, Kansas, 
a pro-slavery town, where he was held a prisoner for four months. 
Mrs. Robinson was in Lincoln's audience. 



BLOOMIXGTOX SPEECH 51 

deserved. And the significance of catch-words cannot 
pass unheeded, for they constitute a sign of the times. 
Everything in this world "jibes" in with everything 
else, and all the fruits of this Nebraska bill are like the 
poisoned source from which they come. I will not say 
that we may not sooner or later be compelled to meet 
force by force ; but the time has not yet come, and if 
we are true to ourselves, may never come. Do not 
mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. 
Therefore let the legions of slavery use bullets; but 
let us wait patiently till November, and fire ballots at 
them in return ; and by that peaceful policy, I believe 
we shall ultimately win. [Applause.] 

27. It was by that policy that here in Illinois the 
early fathers fought the good fight and gained the 
victory. In 1S24 the free men of our State, led by 
Governor Coles (who was a native of Maryland and 
President Madison's private secretary), determined 
that those beautiful groves should never re-echo the 
dirge of one who has no title to himself. By their 
resolute determination, the winds that sweep across 
our broad prairies shall never cool the parched brow, 
nor shall the unfettered streams that bring joy and 
gladness to our free soil water the tired feet, of a slave; 
but so long as those heavenly breezes and sparkling 
streams bless the land, or the groves and their fra- 
grance or their memory remain, the humanity to which 
they minister shall be forever free! [Great ap- 
plause.] Palmer, Yates, Williams, Browning, and some 
more in this convention came from Kentucky to Illinois 



52 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

(instead of going to Missouri), not only to better their 
conditions, but also to get away from slavery. They 
have said so to me, and it is understood among us Ken- 
tuckians that we don't like it one bit. Now, can we, 
mindful of the blessings of liberty which the early men 
of Illinois left to us, refuse a like privilege to the free 
men who seek to plant Freedom's banner on our Wes- 
tern outposts? ["No! No!"] Should we not stand 
by our neighbours who seek to better their conditions 
in Kansas and Nebraska? ["Yes! Yes!"] Can we 
as Christian men, and strong and free ourselves, wield 
the sledge or hold the iron which is to manacle anew 
an already oppressed race? ["No! No!"] "Woe 
unto them," it is written, "that decree unrighteous 
decrees and that write grievousness which they have 
prescribed." Can we afford to sin any more deeply 
against human liberty? ["No! No!"] 

28. One great trouble in the matter is, that slavery 
i> an insidious and crafty power, and gains equally by 
open violence of the brutal as well as by sly manage- 
ment of the peaceful. Even after the ordinance of 
1787, l the settlers in Indiana and Illinois (it was all one 
government then) tried to get Congress to allow slavery 
temporarily, and petitions to that end were sent from 
Kaskaskia, and General Harrison, the Governor, urged 
it from Vincennes, the capital. If that had succeeded, 
good-bye to liberty here. But John Randolph of Vir- 

1 An ordinance framed by the Continental Congress for the or- 
ganization and government of territory now comprising the States 
of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This ordinance forbade 
slavery in the territory. 



BLOOMINGTOX SPEECH 53 

ginia made a vigorous report against it; and although 
they persevered so well as to get three favorable re- 
ports for it, yet the United States Senate, with the aid 
of some slave States, finally squelched it for good. 
[Applause.] And that is why this hall is to-day a 
temple for free men instead of a negro livery stable, 
[Great applause and laughter.] Once let slavery get 
planted in a locality, by ever so weak or doubtful a 
title, and in ever so small numbers, and it is like the 
Canada thistle or Bermuda grass — you can't root it 
out. You yourself may detest slavery ; but your 
neighbor has five or six slaves, and he is an excellent 
neighbor, or your son has married his daughter, and 
they beg you to help save their property, and you vote 
against your interest and principles to accommodate 
a neighbor, hoping that your vote will be on the los- 
ing side. And others do the same ; and in those ways 
slavery gets a sure foothold. And when that is done 
the whole mighty Union — the force of the nation — 
is committed to its support. And that very process 
is working in Kansas to-day. And you must recollect 
that the slave property is worth a billion of dollars 
($1,000,000,000); while free-State men must work 
for sentiment alone. Then there are "blue lodges" 1 
— as they call them — everywhere doing their secret 
and deadly work. 

29. It is a very strange thing, and not solvable by 
any moral law that I know of, that if a man loses his 

1 Secret organizations of pro-slavery men in Missouri whose 
members were bound by oaths to extend slavery into Kansas. 



54 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

horse, the whole country will turn out to help hang the 
thief ; but if a man but a shade or two darker than I 
am is himself stolen, the same crowd will hang one who 
aids in restoring him to liberty. Such are the in- 
consistencies of slavery, where a horse is more sacred 
than a man ; and the essence of squatter or popular 
sovereignty l — I don't care how you call it — is that 
if one man chooses to make a slave of another, no third 
man shall be allowed to object. And if you can do 
this in free Kansas, and it is allowed to stand, the next 
thing you will see is ship-loads of negroes from Africa 
at the wharf at Charleston ; for one thing is as truly 
lawful as the other ; and these are the bastard notions 
we have got to stamp out, else they will stamp us out. 
[Sensation and applause.] 

30. Two years ago, at Springfield, Judge Douglas 
avowed that Illinois came into the Union as a slave 
State, and that slavery was weeded out by the opera- 
tion of his great, patent, everlasting principle of " popu- 
lar sovereignty." [Laughter.] Well, now, that argu- 
ment must be answered, for it has a little grain of truth 
at the bottom. I do not mean that it is true in essence, 
as he would have us believe. It could not be essen- 
tially true if the ordinance of '87 was valid. But, in 
point of fact, there were some degraded beings called 
slaves in Kaskaskia and the other French settlements 
when our first State constitution was adopted ; that 
is a fact, and I don't deny it. Slaves were brought 
here as early as 1720, and were kept here in spite of 

1 See Appendix A. 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 55 

the ordinance of 1787 against it. But slavery did not 
thrive here. On the contrary, under the influence 
of the ordinance, the number decreased fifty-one from 
1810 to 1820; while under the influence of squatter 
sovereignty, right across the river in Missouri, they 
increased seven thousand two hundred and eleven in 
the same time ; and slavery finally faded out in Illinois, 
under the influence of the law of freedom, while it 
grew stronger and stronger in Missouri, under the law 
or practice of " popular sovereignty." In point of 
fact there were but one hundred and seventeen slaves 
in Illinois one year after its admission, or one to every 
four hundred and seventy of its population; or, to 
state it in another way, it Illinois was a slave State in 
1820, so were New York and New Jersey much greater 
slave States from having had greater numbers, slavery 
having been established there in very early times. But 
there is this vital difference between all these States 
and the judge's Kansas experiment : that they sought 
to disestablish slavery which had been already es- 
tablished, while the judge seeks, so far as he can, to 
disestablish freedom, which had been established there 
by the Missouri Compromise. [Voices: "Good! 7 '] 

31. The Union is undergoing a fearful strain ; but it 
is a stout old ship, and has weathered many a hard blow, 
and "the stars in their courses," aye, an invisible power, 
greater than the puny efforts of men, will fight for us. 
But we ourselves must not decline the burden of re- 
sponsibility, nor take counsel of unworthy passions. 
Whatever duty urges us to do or to omit, must be done 



56 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

or omitted; and the recklessness with which our ad- 
versaries break the laws, or counsel their violation, 
should afford no example for us. Therefore, let us 
revere the Declaration of Independence; let us con- 
tinue to obey the Constitution and the laws; let us 
keep step to the music of the Union. Let us draw a 
cordon, so to speak, around the slave States, and the 
hateful institution, like a reptile poisoning itself, will 
perish by its own infamy. [Applause.] 

32. But we cannot be free men if this is, by our na- 
tional choice, to be a land of slavery. Those who deny 
freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves ; and, 
under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it, 
[Loud applause.] 

33. Did you ever, my friends, seriously reflect upon 
the speed with which we are tending downward? 
Within the memory of men now present the leading 
statesmen of Virginia could make genuine, red-hot 
abolitionist speeches in old Virginia; and, as I have 
said, now even in "free Kansas" it is a crime to de- 
clare that it is "free Kansas." The very sentiments 
that I and others have just uttered would entitle us, 
and each of us, to the ignominy and seclusion of a dun- 
geon ; and yet I suppose that, like Paul, we were "free 
born." But if this thing is allowed to continue, it 
will be but one step further to impress the same rule 
in Illinois. [Sensation.] 

34. The conclusion of all is, that we must restore the 
Missouri Compromise. We must highly resolve that 
Kansas must be free! [Great applause.] We must 



BLOOMINGTON SPEECH 57 

reinstate the birthday promise of the Republic ; we 
must reaffirm the Declaration of Independence; we 
must make good in essence as well as in form Madison's 
avowal that "the word slave 1 ought not to appear in the 
Constitution"; and we must even go further, and de- 
cree that only local law, and not that time-honored 
instrument, shall shelter a slaveholder. We must make 
this a land of liberty in fact, as it is in name. But 
in seeking to attain these results — so indispensable 
if the liberty which is our pride and boast shall en- 
dure — we will be loyal to the Constitution and to the 
"flag of our Union," and no matter what our grievance 
— even though Kansas shall come in as a slave State ; 
and no matter what theirs — even if we shall restore 
the Compromise — we will say to the Southern 

DISUNIONISTS, WE WON'T GO OUT OF THE UNION, AND 

you SHAN'T ! ! ! [This was the climax ; the audience 
rose to its feet en masse, applauded, stamped, waved 
handkerchiefs, threw hats in the air, and ran riot for 
several minutes. The arch-enchanter who wrought 
this transformation looked, meanwhile, like the per- 
sonification of political justice.] 

35. But let us, meanwhile, appeal to the sense and 
patriotism of the people, and not to their prejudices ; 
let us spread the floods of enthusiasm here aroused all 
over these vast prairies, so suggestive of freedom. Let 
us commence by electing the gallant soldier Governor 

1 The actual phrase in Article IV of the Constitution is "person 
held to service or labor." Lincoln discusses the covert language 
of the Constitution in the fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Federal 
Edition IV, 253-254. 



58 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

(Colonel) Bissell who stood for the honor of our State 
alike on the plains and amidst the chaparral of Mexico 
and on the floor of Congress, while he defied the South- 
ern Hotspur ; 1 and that will have a greater moral 
effect than all the border ruffians can accomplish in all 
their raids on Kansas. There is both a power and a 
magic in popular opinion. To that let us now appeal ; 
and while, in all probability, no resort to force will be 
needed, our moderation and forbearance will stand us in 
good stead when, if ever, we must make an appeal 
to battle and to the God of Hosts ! ! [Immense 
applause and a rush for the orator.] 

LINCOLN'S DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY 

[August If], 1858 

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. 
This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever 
differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no 
democracy. 

A. Lincoln 

1 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who challenged Bissell to a 
duel when both men were members of the House of Representatives. 
"In accepting the challenge Mr. Bissell chose as the weapons muskets, 
at thirty paces, whereupon the friends of Mr. Davis interfered." 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 59 



THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 

From Lincoln's reentrance into politics in 1854 he and Douglas 
were antagonists. Such speeches as he made from 1854 to 1857 
were made in opposition to measures which Douglas had in- 
itiated or supported, — the Peoria speech of 1854, the Springfield 
speech of the same year, the Bloomington speech, the speeches 
at Springfield in 1857, and in 1856 and 1857 many others which 
have not been preserved, delivered throughout the state. 

When the Senatorial campaign began in 1858, Lincoln and 
Douglas were rival candidates. At Springfield, June 17, the day 
of his nomination, Lincoln made a remarkable address beginning 
with the statement, " A house divided against itself cannot stand." 
His argument was that the Union must become either all slave 
or all free, and that, when taken together, the Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill, with its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the decision 
in the Dred Scott case, and the affair of the Lecompton Con- 
stitution, pointed to a conspiracy to legislate slavery into all the 
United States. This speech gave the keynote for the campaign. 
In later speeches which Lincoln made at Chicago and Springfield, 
and in speeches made by Douglas at Chicago, Bloomington, and 
Springfield, the two men were attacking each other vigorously. 
Finally, at the end of July, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a 
series of joint debates. Douglas accepted. The debates were 
held in different counties throughout the states as follows : (1) 
at Ottawa, August 21 ; (2) at Freeport, August 27 ; (3) at Jones- 
boro, September 15; (4) at Charleston, September 18; (5) at 
Galesburgh, October 7 ; (6) at Quincy, October 13 ; and (7) at 
Alton, October 15. The arrangement was that one candidate 
should speak for an hour, the second for an hour and a half, 
and the first again for a half hour, Douglas seeing to it that he 
should have the advantage of opening and closing in four of the 
seven debates. 

A graphic picture of the typical scene at these debates is given 
in Miss Tarbell's Life of Lincoln, II, 106 : 

"On arrival at the towns where the joint debates were held, 
Douglas was always met by a brass band and a salute of thirty- 
two guns (the Union was composed of thirty-two States in 1858), 
and was escorted to the hotel in the finest equipage to be had. 



60 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Lincoln's supporters took delight in showing their contempt of 
Douglas's elegance by affecting a Republican simplicity, often 
carrying their candidate through the streets on a high and 
unadorned hay-rack drawn by farm horses. The scenes in the 
towns on the occasion of the debates were perhaps never equalled 
at any of the hustings of this country. No distance seemed too 
great for the people to go ; no vehicle too slow or fatiguing. 
At Charleston there was a great delegation of men, women, and 
children present which had come in a long procession from Indiana 
by farm wagons, afoot, on horseback, and in carriages. The 
crowds at three or four of the debates were for that day immense. 
There were estimated to be from eight thousand to fourteen 
thousand people at Quincy, some six thousand at Alton, from 
ten thousand to fifteen thousand at Charleston, some twenty 
thousand at Ottawa. . . . 

" When the crowd was massed at the place of debate, the scene 
was one of the greatest hubbub and confusion. On the corners 
of the squares, and scattered around the outskirts of the crowd, 
were fakirs of every description, selling pain-killers and ague 
cures, watermelons 'and lemonade ; jugglers and beggars plied 
their trades, and the brass bands of all the four corners within 
twenty-five mile^' tooted and pounded at ' Hail Columbia, Happy 
Land,' or 'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.' " 

The subject matter of these debates was roughly as follows : 

I. Arguments of political principle 

A. Is slavery right or wrong? 

B. Should the negroes have social and political equality 

with the whites? 

C. Are slavery and union incompatible? 

II. Arguments upon the history of slavery 

A. What was the intention of the fathers in regard to 

slavery ? 

B. What were the nature and purpose of "popular 

sovereignty," and what would be its effect? 

III. An argument concerning present and future policy in 
regard to slavery 
A. Did current legislation indicate a conspiracy to 
extend slavery into the whole United States? 




Copyright by Clinedinst'from Central News Photo Service 

Lincoln in 1860 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 61 

IV. Personal charges of bad faith and bad conduct 

A. That Lincoln was a trimmer in politics and a traitor 

to his party. 

B. That Douglas had forged a campaign document. 

C. That Douglas had conspired to secure pro-slavery 

legislation. 

Although the debates were at first only of local interest, 
they assumed national importance and came to be read 
throughout the country. Douglas was elected Senator, but 
Lincoln had become a national figure. There was consolation 
for Lincoln, also, in the fact that the Republicans elected their 
state ticket by a majority of some 4000 votes and their Con- 
gressional candidates in the first four districts by large majori- 
ties. The vote for Senator in the legislature stood Douglas 54, 
Lincoln 46. 



THE FIRST LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE 

At Ottawa, III., Aug. 21, 1858 
Mr. Douglas's Opening Speech 

1. Ladies and Gentlemen, — I appear before you to-day for the 
purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now 
agitate the public mind. By an arrangement between Mr. 
Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-day for the purpose 
of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the two 
great political parties of the State and Union, upon the prin- 
ciples in issue between those parties ; and this vast concourse 
of people shows the deep feeling which pervades the public mind 
in regard to the questions dividing us. 

2. Prior to 1854, this country was divided into two great 
political parties, known as the Whig and Democratic parties. 
Both were national and patriotic, advocating principles that 
were universal in their application. An old-line Whig could 
proclaim his principles in Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. 
Whig principles had no boundary sectional line : they were 
not limited by the Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by the 
line of the free and slave States, but applied and were pro- 



62 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

claimed wherever the Constitution ruled or the American flag 
waved over the American soil. So it was and so it is with the 
great Democratic party, which, from the days of Jefferson until 
this period, has proven itself to be the historic party of this 
nation. While the Whig and Democratic parties differed in 
regard to a bank, the tariff, distribution, the specie circular, 
and the sub-treasury, they agreed on the great slavery question 
which now agitates the Union. I say that the Whig party and 
the Democratic party agreed on the slavery question, while 
they differed on those matters of expediency to which I have 
referred. The W T hig party and the Democratic party jointly 
adopted the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a 
proper and just solution l of the slavery question in all its forms. 
Clay was the great leader, with Webster on his right and Cass 
on his left, and sustained by the patriots in the Whig and Demo- 
cratic ranks who had devised and enacted the compromise 
measures of 1850. 

3. In 1851 the Whig party and the Democratic party united 
in Illinois in adopting resolutions indorsing and approving the 
principles of the compromise measures of 1850 as the proper 
adjustment of that question. In 1852, when the Whig party 
assembled in convention at Baltimore for the purpose of nominat- 
ing a candidate for the presidency, the first thing it did was to 
declare the compromise measures of 1850, in substance and in 
principle, a suitable adjustment of that question. [Here the 
speaker was interrupted by loud and long-continued applause.! 
My friends, silence will be more acceptable to me in the dis- 
cussion of these questions than applause. I desire to address 
myself to your judgment, your understanding, and your con- 
sciences, and not to your passions or your enthusiasm. When 
the Democratic convention assembled in Baltimore in the same 
year, for the purpose of nominating a Democratic candidate 
for the presidency, it also adopted the compromise measures of 
1850 as the basis of Democratic action. Thus you see 2 that up 

1 A typical misstatement. The Compromise was not thought 
of by either party as a solution of the slavery question. Feeling 
was so strong that the question could not be solved at this time and 
had to be compromised instead. 

2 Douglas first misrepresents the Compromise Bill of 1850 and 
then bases a train of reasoning upon the misrepresentation. 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 63 

to 1853-54 the Whig party and the Democratic party both stood 
on the same platform with regard to the slavery question. That 
platform was the right of the people of each State and each 
Territory to decide their local and domestic institutions for 
themselves, subject only to the Federal Constitution. 

4. During the session of Congress of 1853-54 I introduced 
into the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the Ter- 
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska on that principle which had 
been adopted in the compromise measures of 1850, 1 approved by 
the Whig party and the Democratic party in Illinois in 1851, 
and indorsed by the Whig party and the Democratic party in 
national convention in 1852. In order that there might be no 
misunderstanding in relation to the principle involved in the 
Kansas and Nebraska bill, I put forth the true intent and mean- 
ing of the act in these words : " It is the true intent and meaning 
of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, 
or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- 
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject only to the Federal Constitution." Thus 
you see that up to 1854, when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was 
brought into Congress for the purpose of carrying out the prin- 
ciples which both parties had up to that time indorsed and 
approved, there had been no division in this country in regard 
to that principle except the opposition of the Abolitionists. In 
the House of Representatives of the Illinois legislature, upon 
a resolution 2 asserting that principle, every Whig and every 
Democrat in the House voted in the affirmative, and only four 
men voted against it, and those four were old-line Abolitionists. 

5. In 1854 Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Lyman Trumbull 
entered into an arrangement, one with the other, and each with 
his respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig party on the one 

1 As untrue as the statements which precede it. The principle 
was first clearly announced in this Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854 
and was immediately opposed. See Appendix A, Popular Sov- 
ereignty and Compromise of 1850. 

2 Douglas does not give the date of this resolution. Presumably 
it referred to the Clay Compromise of 1850 and not to the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill of 1854. We know from Lincoln's Bloomington Ad- 
dress that some Illinois Democrats opposed the Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill ; we know that many Illinois Whigs opposed the bill. 



64 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party on the other, 
and to connect the members of both into an Abolition party, 
under the name and disguise of a Republican party. 1 The 
terms of that arrangement between Lincoln and Trumbull have 
been published by Lincoln's special friend, James H. Matheny, 
Esq. ; and they were that Lincoln should have General Shields' s 
place in the United States Senate, which was then about to be- 
come vacant, and that Trumbull should have my seat when my 
term expired. Lincoln went to work to Abolitionize the Old 
Whig party all over the State, pretending that he was then as 
good a Whig as ever ; and Trumbull went to work in his part of 
the State preaching Abolitionism in its milder and lighter form, 
and trying to Abolitionize the Democratic party, and bring old 
Democrats handcuffed and bound hand and foot into the Abo- 
lition camp. In pursuance of the arrangement the parties met 
at Springfield in October, 1854, and proclaimed their new plat- 
form. Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp the old-line 
Whigs, and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, 
and Parson Lovejoy, 2 who were ready to receive them and 

1 This charge of an arrangement between Trumbull and Lincoln 
was false, though it is true that Matheny had (as Lincoln said in 
the third debate, at Jonesboro, September 15) done "some such 
immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about." For 
the facts about this election see the introduction to the Bloomington 
Speech and also Lincoln's letter to E. B. Washburne, Feb. 9, 1855. 

2 Joshua R. Giddings (1795-1864) of Ohio, as a member of Congress 
1838-1859 opposed the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill, and other measures for the extension of slavery. 

Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873) of Ohio, as early as 1837 acted as 
attorney for a fugitive slave ; helped to found the Liberty Party in 
1841 as a protest against the encroachments of slavery; presided 
over the first national convention of the Free Soil Party in 1848 ; 
was United States Senator 1849-1855; opposed the Compromise 
of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill ; was Governor of Ohio 1855- 
1861 ; was a prominent candidate for the Presidency in the Republi- 
can convention of 1860 ; was Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's 
cabinet 1861-1864 ; succeeded Taney as Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court in 1864. 

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), whose mother was a negro slave 
and whose father a white man, began lecturing for the Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery Society in 1841 ; in 1845-1846 lectured upon slavery 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 65 

christen them in their new faith. They laid down on that 
occasion a platform for their new Republican party, which was 
thus to be constructed. I have the resolutions of the State 
convention then held, 1 which was the first mass State convention 
ever held in Illinois by the Black Republican party ; and I now 
hold them in my hands and will read a part of them, and cause 
the others to be printed. Here are the most important and 
material resolutions of this Abolition platform : — 

1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, that, 
when parties become subversive of the ends for which they are estab- 
lished, or incapable of restoring the government to the true principles 
of the Constitution, it is the right and duty of the people to dissolve 
the political bands by which they may have been connected therewith, 
and to organize new parties upon such principles and with such views 
as the circumstances and the exigencies of the nation may demand. 

2. Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the reorganiza- 
tion of parties, and, repudiating all previous party attachments, 
names, and predilections, we unite ourselves together in defence of 
the liberty and Constitution of the country, and will hereafter 
co-operate as the Republican party, pledged to the accomplishment 
of the following purposes : to bring the administration of the govern- 
ment back to the control of first principles ; to restore Nebraska and 
Kansas to the position of free Territories ; that, as the Constitution 
of the United States vests in the States, and not in Congress, the 
power to legislate for the extradition of fugitives from labor, to repeal 
and entirely abrogate the Fugitive-Slave law ; to restrict slavery to 
those States in which it exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more 
slave States into the Union ; to abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which 
the general government has exclusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the 

in England and upon the continent of Europe; in 1847 became 
editor of an anti-slavery newspaper in Rochester, New York ; in 
1861 urged Lincoln to employ colored troops and to emancipate 
the slaves. 

Owen Lovejoy (1811-1864) was an Abolition leader elected to the 
Illinois legislature in 1854 and to Congress in 1856. 

1 Douglas is again misstating facts. For an account of the first 
State Convention of the Republican party see introduction to the 
Bloomington Speech. The Chicago Press and Tribune denounced 
as a forgery Douglas's quotation of the alleged platform which fol- 
lows iri the text. Lincoln exposed the Judge in the second debate, 
at Freeport. See Tarbell, Life of Lincoln II, 108-110. 



66 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

acquirement of any more Territories unless the practice of slavery 
therein forever shall have been prohibited. 

3. Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use such 
constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to their 
accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, under 
the general or State government, who is not positively and fully 
committed to the support of these principles, and whose personal 
character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, and who 
shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties. 

6. Now, gentlemen, your Black Republicans have cheered 
every one of those propositions ; and yet I venture to say that 
you cannot get Mr. Lincoln to come out and say that he is now 
in favor of each one of them. That these propositions, one 
and all, constitute the platform of the Black Republican party 
of this day, I have no doubt; and, when you were not aware 
for what purpose I was reading them, your Black Republicans 
cheered them as good Black Republican doctrines. My object 
in reading these resolutions was to put the question to Abraham 
Lincoln this day, whether he now stands and will stand by each 
article in that creed, and carry it out. I desire to know whether 
Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of the un- 
conditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave law. I desire him to 
answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, 
against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, 
even if the people want them. I want to know whether he stands 
pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union 
with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit 
to make. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged 
to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire 
him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition 
of the slave trade between the different States. I desire to know 
whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories 
of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri 
Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed 
to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is pro- 
hibited therein. I want his answer to these questions. Your 
affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition platform are not 
satisfactory. 1 ask Abraham Lincoln to answer these questions, 
in order that, when I trot him down to lower Egypt, I may put 
the same questions to him. My principles are the same every- 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 67 

where. I can proclaim them alike in the North, the South, the 
East, and the West. My principles will apply wherever the 
Constitution prevails and the American flag waves. I desire 
to know whether Mr. Lincoln's principles will bear transplanting 
from Ottawa to Jonesboro ? I put these questions to him to-day 
distinctly, and ask an answer. I have a right to an answer; 
for I quote from the platform of the Republican party, made by 
himself and others at the time that party was formed, and the 
bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve and kill the Old Whig party, 
and transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the Abolition 
party, under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglass. In 
the remarks I have made on this platform, and the position of 
Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or 
unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty- 
five years. There were many points of sympathy between us 
when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively 
boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was 
a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing 
grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful 
in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate 
in this world's goods. 1 Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who 
perform with admirable skill everything which they undertake. 
I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and, when a cabinet- 
maker, I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss 
said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with 
anything else ; but I believe that Lincoln was always more 
successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to 
get into the legislature. I met him there, however, and had 
sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had 
in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. 
He could beat any of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race, 
in pitching quoits or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor 
than all the boys of the town together ; 2 and the dignity and 

1 As a matter of fact the business in which Lincoln was engaged 
was a failure, and in consequence Lincoln assumed an indebtedness 
of $1100. It took him fifteen years to pay this "national debt," 
as he called it. Even in 1848 he was sending home money to be 
applied on the debt. 

2 Under a cloak of friendliness Douglas is abusing Lincoln's per- 
sonal character. As early q,s 1842 Lincoln was an avowed supporter 
of the temperance movement. 



68 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight 
excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that 
was present and participated. I sympathized with him because 
he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln 
served with me in the legislature in 1836, when we both retired ; 1 
and he subsided or became submerged, and he was lost sight of 
as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot intro- 
duced his celebrated proviso, 2 and the Abolition tornado swept 
over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a member of 
Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate 
of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend and 
companion. Whilst in Congress, he distinguished himself by 
his opposition to the Mexican War, 3 taking the side of the common 
enemy against his own country ; and, when he returned home, 
he found that the indignation of the people followed him every- 
where, and he was again submerged, or obliged to retire into 
private life, 4 forgotten by his former friends. He came up again 
in 1854, just in time to make this Abolition or Black Republican 
platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred 
Douglass, for the Republican party to stand upon. Trumbull, 
too, was one of our own contemporaries. He was born and 
raised in old Connecticut, was bred a Federalist, but, removing 
to Georgia, turned Nullifier when nullification was popular, and, 
as soon as he disposed of his clocks and wound up his business, 
migrated to Illinois, turned politician and lawyer here, and made 
his appearance in 1841 as a member of the legislature. He be- 
came noted as the author of the scheme to repudiate a large 
portion of the State debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would 
have brought infamy and disgrace upon the fair escutcheon of 
our glorious State. The odium attached to that measure con- 
signed him to oblivion for a time. I helped to do it. I walked 
into a public meeting in the hall of the House of Representatives, 

1 Lincoln was elected to the Illinois State Legislature in 1834, 
and reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840, after which he declined fur- 
ther election. 

2 See Appendix A. 

3 Regarding Lincoln's attitude toward the Mexican War see his 
Autobiography published in this volume. 

4 Lincoln retired in accordance with an agreement made with 
Whig friends before his election. See the Autobiography. 



LINCOLN- DO UGLA S DEB A TES 69 

and replied to his repudiating speeches, and resolutions were car- 
ried over his head denouncing repudiation, and asserting the moral 
and legal obligation of Illinois to pay every dollar of the debt she 
owed and every bond that bore her seal. Trumbull's malignity 
has followed me since I thus defeated his infamous scheme. 

7. These two men, having formed this combination to 
Abolitionize the Old Whig party and the old Democratic party, 
and put themselves into the Senate of the United States, in pur- 
suance of their bargain, are now carrying out that arrangement. 
Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith ; that the bargain 
was that Lincoln should be the senator in Shields's place, and 
Trumbull was to wait for mine ; and the story goes that Trumbull 
cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five Abolitionized 
Democrats who were holding over in the Senate. He would not 
let them vote for Lincoln, which obliged the rest of the Abolition- 
ists to support him in order to secure an Abolition senator. 
There are a number of authorities for the truth of this besides 
Matheny, and I suppose that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. 

8. Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place intended 
for Trumbull, as Trumbull cheated him and got his ; and Trum- 
bull is stumping the State, traducing me for the purpose of 
securing the position for Lincoln, in order to quiet him. It was 
in consequence of this arrangement that the Republican con- 
vention was impanelled to instruct for Lincoln and nobody else ; 
and it was On this account that they passed resolutions that he 
was their first, their last, and their only choice. Archy Williams 
was nowhere, Browning was nobody, Went worth was not to be 
considered; they had no man in the Republican party for the 
place except Lincoln. 1 for the reason that he demanded that they 
should carry out the arrangement. 

9. Having formed this new party for the benefit of deserters 
from W'higgery and deserters from Democracy, and having laid 
dowm the Abolition platform which I have read, Lincoln now 
takes his stand and proclaims his Abolition doctrines. Let me 
read a part of them. In his speech at Springfield to the con- 
vention which nominated him for the Senate - he said : — 

1 Douglas is here attempting to stir up factional enmity among 
leaders of the Republican party and turn it against Lincoln. 

2 June 17, 1858, two months before the present debate. 



70 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been readied 
and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and 
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, — I do not 
expect the house to fall, — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as 
South. ["Good," "Good," and cheers.] 

10. I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say, 
"Good." I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your senti- 
ments ; and I will prove to you now, if you will listen to me, that 
it is revolutionary and destructive of the existence of this govern- 
ment. Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which I have read, says 
that this government cannot endure permanently in the same 
condition in which it was made by its framers — divided into 
free and slave States. He says that it has existed for about 
seventy years thus divided, and yet he tells you that it cannot 
endure permanently on the same principles and in the same 
relative condition in which our fathers made it. Why can it 
not exist divided into free and slave States? Washington, 
Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and the great 
men of that day made this government divided into free States 
and slave States, and left each State perfectly free to do as it 
pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can it not exist on the 
same principles on which our fathers made it? 1 They knew 
when they framed the Constitution that in a country as wide and 
broad as this, with such a variety of climate, production, and 
interest, the people necessarily required different laws and in- 
stitutions in different localities. They knew that the laws and 
regulations which would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire 
would be unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina; 
and they therefore provided that each State should retain its 
own legislature and its own sovereignty, with the full and com- 
plete power to do as it pleased within its own limits, in all that 
was local and not national. One of the reserved fights of the 

1 Lincoln makes this question, as Douglas restated it in a later 
debate, the text of his Cooper Union Address. 



LINCOLN -DOUGLAS DEBATES 71 

States was the right to regulate the relations between master 
and servant, on the slavery question. At the time the Con- 
stitution was framed there were thirteen States in the Union, 
twelve of which were slaveholding States and one a free State. 1 
Suppose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, 
that the States should all be free or all be slave, had prevailed; 
and what would have been the result? Of course, the twelve 
slaveholding States would have overruled .the one free State ; 
and slavery would have been fastened by a constitutional pro- 
vision on every inch of the American republic, instead of being 
left, as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to decide for itself. 
Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws and institutions 
of the different States is neither possible nor desirable. If 
uniformity had been adopted when the government was estab- 
lished, it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery 
everywhere, or else the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro 
equality everywhere. 

11. We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the 
Dred Scott decision, 2 and will not submit to it, for the reason 
'that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges 
of citizenship. That is the first and main reason which he 
assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United 
States and its decision. I ask you, Are you in favor of conferring 
upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? 3 Do 
you desire to strike out of our State constitution that clause 
which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State, and allow 
the free negroes to flow in, and cover your prairies with black 
settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a 
free negro colony, in order that, when Missouri abolishes slavery, 
she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into 
Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with 
yourselves? If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to 

1 Pennsylvania. Thomas Paine wrote the provision excluding 
slavery in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1780. 

2 See Appendix A. 

3 Throughout the debates with Douglas, Lincoln expressed himself 
as against granting the nesro a vote. By March 13, 1S64. he had 
altered his opinion, for he then wrote to the Governor of Louisiana 
suggesting that the more intelligent negroes and those who had fought 
gallantly be given the suffrage. 



72 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, 
if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and 
to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge 
your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican 
party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro. For one, 
I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. I 
believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe 
it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their 
posterity forever ; and I am in favor of confining citizenship to 
white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of 
conferring it upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. 

12. Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little 
Abolition orators who go around and lecture in the basements 
of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence that all men were created equal, and then asks how 
can you deprive a negro of that equality which God and the 
Declaration of Independence award to him? He and they 
maintain that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God, 
and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If 
they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. 
I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the 
negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother ; but, for my 
own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively 
deny that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever. Lincoln 
has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. 
He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a 
medal from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abolition- 
ism. He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and 
that he was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and that 
no human law can deprive him of these rights which were guaran- 
teed to him by the Supreme Ruler of the universe. Now I do 
not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the 
equal of the white man. If he did, he has been a long time 
demonstrating the fact. For thousands of years the negro has 
been a race upon the earth ; and during all that time, in all 
latitudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, 
he has been inferior to the race which .he has there met. He 
belongs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior 
position. I do not hold that, because the negro is our inferior, 
therefore he ought to be a slave. Bv no means can such a con- 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 73 

elusion be drawn from what I have said. On the contrary, 
I hold that humanity and Christianity both require that the 
negro shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and every 
immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he 
lives. 1 On that point, I presume, there can be no diversity of 
opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our inferior and 
dependent beings every right, every privilege, every facility and 
immunity consistent with the public good. The question then 
arises, What rights and privileges are consistent with the public 
good? This is a question which each State and each Territory 
must decide for itself. Illinois has decided it for herself. We 
have provided that the negro shall not be a slave ; and we have 
also provided that he shall not be a citizen, but protect him in 
his civil rights, in his life, his person, and his property, only 
depriving him of all political rights whatsoever, and refusing 
to put him on an equality with the white man. That policy 
of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to me, and, 
if it were to the Republicans, there would then be no question 
upon the subject ; but the Republicans say that he ought to be 
made a citizen, and, when he becomes a citizen, he becomes your 
equal, with all your rights and privileges. They assert the Dred 
Scott decision to be monstrous because it denies that the negro 
is or can be a citizen under the Constitution. 

13. Now I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit 
slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right 
to continue and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. 
I hold that New York had as much right to abolish slavery as 
Virginia has to continue it, and that each and every State of this 
Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases upon 
this question of slavery and upon all its domestic institutions. 
Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this con- 
troversy. There is a far more important one to you ; and that 
is, What shall be done with the free negro ? We have settled the 
slavery question as far as we are concerned : we have prohibited 
it in Illinois forever, and, in doing so, I think we have done wisely, 
and there is no man in the State who would be more strenuous 
in his opposition to the introduction of slavery than I would ; but, 

1 "Consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives" 
are "weasel words," susceptible of whatever interpretation be con- 
venient. 



74 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

when we settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power over 
that subject. We have done our whole duty, and can do no 
more. We must leave each and every other State to decide for 
itself the same question. In relation to the policy to be pursued 
toward the free negroes,' we have said that they shall not vote ; 
whilst Maine, on the other hand, has said that they shall vote. 
Maine is a sovereign State, and has the power to regulate the 
qualifications of voters within her limits. I would never consent 
to confer the right of voting and of citizenship upon a negro, but 
still I am not going to quarrel with Maine for differing from me 
in opinion. Let Maine take care of her own negroes, and fix 
the qualifications of her own voters to suit herself, without 
interfering with Illinois; and Illinois will not interfere with 
Maine. So with the State of New York. She allows the negro 
to vote provided he owns two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of 
property, but not otherwise. 1 While I would not make any 
distinction whatever between a negro who held property and 
one who did not, yet, if the sovereign State of New York chooses 
to make that distinction, it is her business, and not mine ; and 
I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she pleases on 
this question if she minds her own business, and we will do the 
same thing. Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously 
and rigidly upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, 
which guarantees to each State and Territory the right to do as 
it pleases on all things local and domestic, instead of Congress 
interfering, we will continue at peace one with another. Why 
should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Kentucky with Ohio, 
or Virginia with New York, merely because their institutions 
differ? Our fathers intended that our institutions should differ. 
They knew that the North and the South, having different 
climates, productions, and interests, required different institu- 
tions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity among the 
institutions of the different States, is a new doctrine, never 
dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of this 
government. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set them- 
selves up as wiser than these men who made this government, 
which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of 

1 The law giving the negro who owned two hundred and fifty 
dollars' worth of property the vote was advocated by William Cullen 
Bryant in the New York Evening Post. It was passed in 1845. 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 75 

popular sovereignty, 1 recognizing the right of each State to do as 
it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown from a nation 
of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions of 
people. We have crossed the Alleghany Mountains and filled 
up the whole Northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, and 
building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and 
Christianity where before there was nothing but savage bar- 
barism. Under that principle we have become, from a feeble 
nation, the most powerful on the face of the earth ; and, if we 
only adhere to that principle, we can go forward increasing in 
territory, in power, in strength, and in glory until the Republic 
of America shall be the north star that shall guide the friends 
of freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can we 
not adhere to the great principle of self-government upon which 
our institutions were originally based? I believe that this new 
doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve 
the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all the 
Northern States in one body against the South, to excite a 
sectional war between the free States and the slave States, in 
order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. 

Lincoln's Reply 

1. My Fellow-citizens, — When a man hears himself 
somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him, — at least, 
I find it so with myself; but, when misrepresentation 
becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse 
him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that 
Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the his- 
tory of the old Democratic and the old Whig parties, 
that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement 
in 1854 by which I was to have the place of General 

1 The principle of popular sovereignty had not nourished for 
seventy years ; the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which forbade 
slavery in all territory north of 36° 30' except Missouri, was a denial 
of the principle of popular sovereignty as understood by Douglas. 



76 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Shields ! in the United States Senate, and Judge Trum- 
bull was to have the plaee of Judge Douglas. Now all 
I have to say upon that subject is that I think no man 
— not even Judge Douglas — can prove it, because 
it is not true. I have no doubt he is "conscientious" 
in saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such 
a length of time to read, as being the platform of the 
Republican party in 1854, I say I never had anything 
to do with them ; and I think Trumbull never had. 
Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever did 
have anything to do with them. I believe this is true 
about those resolutions. There was a call for a con- 
vention to form a Republican party at Springfield ; 
and I think that my friend Mr. Lovejoy, who is here 
upon this stand, had a hand in it. I think this is true ; 
and I think, if he will remember accurately, he will be 
able to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and 
I would not go in. I believe it is also true that I went 
away from Springfield, when the convention was in 
session, to attend court in Tazewell County. It is 
true they did place my name, though without authority, 
upon the committee, and afterward wrote me to attend 
the meeting of the committee ; but I refused to do so, 
and I never had anything to do with that organization. 2 

1 General James Shields (1810-1879), an Illinois lawyer and poli- 
tician, was a Brigadier-General in the Mexican and Civil Wars. 
He served in the United States Senate as a Democrat from 1849 to 
1855 ; and was candidate for reelection in the three-cornered con- 
test of 1854 to which Lincoln here refers. This is the same man 
who challenged Lincoln to a duel in 1842. 

2 In a letter of November 27, 1854. to Ichabod Codding, Lincoln 
asks why his name has been placed upon the Republican State Cen-- 



LINCOLN -DOUGLAS DEBATES 77 

This is the plain truth about all that matter of the 
resolutions. 

2. Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells 
of Trumbull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic 
party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the Old Whig 
party, I have the means of knowing about that : Judge 
Douglas cannot have ; and I know there is no substance 
to it whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is " conscien- 
tious" about it. I know that, after Mr. Lovejoy got 
into the legislature that winter, he complained of me 
that I had told all the Old Whigs of his district that the 
Old Whig party was good enough for them, and some 
of them voted against him because I told them so. Now 
I have no means of totally disproving such charges as 
this which the judge makes. A man cannot prove a 
negative ; but he has a right to claim that, when a 
man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some 
proof to show the truth of what he says. I certainly 
cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about 
things ; but I have a right to claim that, if a man says 
he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it. 
I always have a right to claim this, and it is not satis- 
factory to me that he may be " conscientious" on the 
subject. 

3. Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on 
such things, but in regard to that general Abolition 
tilt that Judge Douglas makes when he says that I was 

tral Committee, and insists that he has not been consulted on the 
subject. He points out the fact that the principles expressed in his 
Peoria Speech are not those held by most members of the committee. 



78 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

engaged at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing 
the Old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read 
a part of a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, 
which will show altogether a different view of the 
position I took in that contest of 1854. [Voice : "Put 
on your specs."] Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so. I am 
no longer a young man. 

This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The fore- 
going history may not be precisely accurate in every particular ; 
but I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt 
to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief materials 
enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise is right or wrong. 

I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong, — wrong in its 
direct effect, — letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, — and 
wrong in its prospective principle, — allowing it to spread to 
every other part of the wide world where man can be found in- 
clined to take it. 

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real 
zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it 
because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it 
because it deprives our republican example of its just influence 
in the world ; enables the enemies of free institutions, with 
plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites ; causes the real friends 
of freedom to doubt our sincerity ; and especially because it 
forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open 
war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, — 
criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that 
there is no right principle of action but self-interest. 

Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice 
against the Southern people. They are just what we would be 
in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, 
they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we 
should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses of 
North and South. Doubtless there are individuals on both 
sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; 
and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 79 

out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their 
slaves, go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists ; while some 
Northern ones go South, and become most cruel slave-masters. 

When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for 
the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it 
is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to 
get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appre- 
ciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing 
what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power 
were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing 
institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and 
send them to Liberia, 1 — to their own native land. But a 
moment's reflection would convince me that, whatever of high 
hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its 
sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in 
a day, they would all perish in the next ten days ; and there are 
not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to 
carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free 
them all, and keep them among us as underling's? Is it quite 
certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not 
hold one in slavery, at any rate ; yet the point is not clear enough 
to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and 
make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings 
will not admit of this ; and, if mine would, we well know that 
those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this 
feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole 
question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, 
whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We 
cannot make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of 
gradual emancipation might be adopted ; but, for their tardiness 
in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. 

When they remind us of their constitutional rights, 2 I ac- 

1 On May 5, 1821, territory was secured in Liberia for coloniza- 
tion and a colony soon established there. During his Presidency 
Lincoln showed great interest in this colony, and attempted, also, 
to send a colony of negroes to Central America. Apparently he 
became doubtful of the success of such attempts to solve the negro 
problem. See Address on Colonization, August 14, 1862, and 
Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862. 

2 The Constitution reads: "No person held to service or labor 



80 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

knowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I 
would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their 
fugitives which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to 
carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws 
are to hang an innocent one. 

But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for 
permitting slavery to go into our own free territory than it would 
for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law which 
forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has 
so long forbidden the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly 
be distinguished in any moral principle ; and the repeal of the 
former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter. 

4. I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows 
that I said this. I think he has the answer here to 
one of the questions he put to me. I do not mean to 
allow him to catechise me unless he pays back for it 
in kind. I will not answer questions one after another, 
unless he reciprocates ; but as he has made this in- 
quiry, and I have answered it before, he has got it 
without my getting anything in return. He has got 
my answer on the Fugitive-Slave law. 

5. Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any 
great length ; but this is the true complexion of all I 
have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery 
and the black race. This is the whole of it ; and any- 
thing that argues me into his idea of perfect social and 
political equality with the negro is but a specious and 
fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can 
prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will 

in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labor may be due." — Article IV, Section 2. 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 81 

say here, while upon this subject, that I have no pur- 
pose, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with 
the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. 1 
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no 
inclination ,to do so. I have no purpose to introduce 
political and social equality between the white and the 
black races. There is a physical difference between 
the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever 
forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect 
equality ; and, inasmuch as it becomes a necessity 
that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge 
Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong 
having the superior position. I have never said any- 
thing to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding 
all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro 
is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in 
the Declaration of Independence, - - the right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he 
is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree 
with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many re- 
spects, — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral 
or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat 
the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which 
his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of 
Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. 

6. Now I pass on to consider one or two more of 
these little follies. The judge is wofully at fault about 

; In this Lincoln differed with the opinion of Hie Abolitionists. 
They would interfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
where it existed. 



82 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

his early friend Lincoln being a " grocery-keeper." I 
don't think that it would be a great sin if I had been ; 
but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery 
anywhere in the world. 1 It is true that Lincoln did 
work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house 
up at the head of a hollow. And so I think my friend, 
the judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at 
the time when I was in Congress of having opposed 
our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. 
The judge did not make his charge very distinctly; 
but I tell you what he can prove, by referring to the 
record. You remember I was an Old Whig ; and, 
whenever the Democratic Party tried to get me to vote 
that the war had been righteously begun by the Presi- 
dent, I would not do it. But, whenever they asked 
for any money or land-warrants or anything to pay 
the soldiers there, during all that time, I gave the same 
vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you 
please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the 
truth ; and the judge has the right to make all he can 
out of it. But when he, by a general charge, conveys 
the idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers who 
were fighting in the Mexican War, or did anything else 
to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly 
and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the 
records will prove to him. 

1 Apparently Lincoln is here speaking humorously or ironically. 
From the autumn of 1832 until early in 1834 he was, with Wm. F. 
Berry, joint-owner of a store where groceries and liquors were sold. 
Perhaps Lincoln is making a sarcastic reference to Douglas's charge 
that he could "ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together." 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 83 

7. As I have not used up so much of my time as I 
had supposed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two 
of these minor topics upon which the judge has spoken. 
He has read from my speech in Springfield in which I 
say that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." 
Does the judge say it can stand? I don't know whether 
he does or not. The judge does not seem to be attend- 
ing to me just now, but I would like to know if it is 
his opinion that a house divided against itself can 
stand. If he does, then there is a question of veracity, 
not between him and me, but between the judge and an 
authority of a somewhat higher character. 

8. Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this 
matter for the purpose of saying something seriously. 
I know that the judge may readily enough agree with 
me that the maxim which was put forth by the Saviour 
is true, but he may allege that I misapply it ; and the 
judge has a right to urge that in my application I do 
misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I 
do not misapply it. When he undertakes to say that 
because I think this nation, so far as the question of 
slavery is concerned, will all become one thing or all the 
other, I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity 
in the various States in all their institutions, he argues 
erroneously. The great variety of the local institu- 
tions in the States, springing from differences in the 
soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the 
climate, are bonds of union. They do not make "a 
house divided against itself," but they make a house 
united. If they produce in one section of the country 



84 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

what is called for by the wants of another section, and 
this other section can supply the wants of the first, 
they are not matters of discord, but bonds of union, — 
true bonds of union. But can this question of slavery 
be considered as among these varieties in the institu- 
tions of the country? I leave it to you to sa}^ whether, 
in the history of our government, this institution of 
slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, 
and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an 
element of division in the house. I ask you to consider 
whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's 
minds shall continue to be the same, after this generation 
and assemblage shall sink into the grave, and another 
race shall arise with the same moral and intellectual 
development we have, — whether, if that institution 
is standing in the same irritating position in which it 
now is, it will not continue an element of division. 

9. If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to 
this question, the Union is a house divided against it- 
self ; and when the judge reminds me that I have often 
said to him that the institution of slavery has existed 
for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist 
in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for 
it by looking at the position in which our fathers 
originally placed it, - - restricting it from the new Ter- 
ritories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off 
its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus 
putting the seal of legislation against its spread. 1 The 
public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the 

1 See Cooper Union Address. 



LINCOLN DOUGLAS DEBATES 85 

course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think, — 
and in this I charge nothing on the judge's motives, — 
lately, I think that he, and those acting with him, have 
placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to 
the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And, 
while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have 
said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the 
question until the opponents of slavery arrest the fur- 
ther spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction ; or, on the other hand, that its advocates 
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful 
in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
South. Now I believe, if we could arrest the spread, 
and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madi- 
son placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years 
past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction. The crisis would be past, and the institu- 
tion might be let alone for a hundred years — if it 
should live so long — in the States where it exists, yet 
it would be going out of existence in the way best for 
both the black and the white races. [A voice : "Then 
do you repudiate popular sovereignty?"] Well, then, 
let us talk about popular sovereignty ! What is popular 
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have 
slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the Territories ? 
I will state — and I have an able man to watch me — 
my understanding is that popular sovereignty, as now 
applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people 



86 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

of a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does 
not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. 
I do not mean that, if this vast concourse of people 
were in a Territory of the United States, any one of 
them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want 
one ; but I do say that, as 1 understand the Dred Scott 
decision, 1 if any one man wants slaves, all the rest 
have no way of keeping that one man from holding 
them. 

10. When I made my speech at Springfield, of which 
the judge complains, and from w r hich he quotes, I really 
was not thinking of the things which he ascribes to 
me at all. I had no thought in the world that I was 
doing anything to bring about a war between the free 
and slave States. I had no thought in the world that 
I was doing anything to bring about a political and 
social equality of the black and white races. It never 
occurred to me that I was doing anything or favoring 
anything to reduce to a dead uniformity all the local 
institutions of the various States. But I must say, 
in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing something 
which leads to these bad results, it is none the better 
that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the coun- 
try, if I have any influence in producing it, whether I 
intend it or not. But can it be true that placing this 
institution upon the original basis — the basis upon 
which our fathers placed it — can have any tendency 
to set the Northern and the Southern States at war 
with one another, or that it can have any tendency to 

1 See Appendix A. 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 87 

make the people of Vermont raise sugar-cane because 
they raise it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the 
people of Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand prairie, 
where they will not grow, -because they cut pine logs 
in Maine, where they do grow? The judge says this 
is a new principle started in regard to this question. 
Does the judge claim that he is working on the plan of 
the founders of the government? I think he says in 
some of his speeches - - indeed, I have one here now — 
that he saw evidence of a policy to allow slavery to 
be south of a certain line, while north of it it should 
be excluded ; and he saw an indisposition on the part 
of the country to stand upon that policy, and there- 
fore he set about studying the subject upon original 
principles, and upon original principles he got up the 
Nebraska bill! I am fighting it upon these "original 
principles," — fighting it in the Jeffersonian, Washing- 
tonian, and Madisonian fashion. 

11. Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little 
while to one or two other things in that Springfield 
speech. 1 My main object was to show, so far as my 
humble ability was capable of showing to the people 
of this country, what I believed was the truth, — that 
there was a tendency, if not a conspiracy, among those 
who have engineered this slavery question for the last 
four or five years, to make slavery perpetual and 
universal in this nation. Having made that speech 
principally for that object, after arranging the evidences 

1 Here Lincoln turns from refutation to direct argument, making 
again his charge of conspiracy in the recent pro-slavery legislation. 



88 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I con- 
cluded with this bit of comment : — 

We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are 
the result of pre-concert ; but, when we see a lot of framed tim- 
bers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out 
at different times and places, and by different workmen, — 
Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, 1 for instance, — and when 
we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make 
the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly 
fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces 
exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too 
many or too few, — not omitting even the scaffolding, — or if a 
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted 
and prepared to yet bring such piece in, — in such a case we feel 
it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, and Roger 
and James, all understood one another from the beginning, and 
all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first 
blow was struck. 

12. When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago 
on the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered 
on the 16th of June, he made an harangue there in 
which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing 
that he had carefully read it ; and, while he paid no 
attention to this matter at all, but complimented me 
as being a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman," 
notwithstanding I had said this, he goes on and deduces, 
or draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine 
to set the States at war with one another, to make all 
the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white 
people to marry together. Then, as the judge had 

1 Stephen Douglas, his opponent in these debates ; Franklin 
Pierce, President of the United States, 1853-1857; Roger Taney, 
Chief Justice and author of the Dred Scott decision; James Bu- 
chanan, President of the United States, 1857-1S61. 



LINCOLN -DOUGLAS DEBATES 89 

complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must 
confess to my weakness), I was a little " taken"; for 
it came from a great man. I was not very much ac- 
customed to flattery, and it came the sweeter to me. 
I was rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, 
when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any 
other man, and got less of it. As the judge had so 
flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he 
meant to deal unfairly with me. So I went to work to 
show him that he misunderstood the whole scope of 
my speech, and that I really never intended to set the 
people at war with one another. As an illustration, 
the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I 
used this expression, that I claimed no right under the 
Constitution, nor had I any inclination, to enter into 
the slave States and interfere with the institutions of 
slavery. He says upon that, Lincoln will not enter 
into the slave States, but will go to the banks of the 
Ohio, on this side, and shoot over ! He runs on, step 
by step, in the horse-chestnut style of argument, until 
in the Springfield speech he says, " Unless he shall be 
successful in firing his batteries until he shall have ex- 
tinguished slavery in all the States, the Union shall be 
dissolved." Now I don't think that was exactly the 
way to treat a "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." 
I know, if I had asked the judge to show when or where 
it was I had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into 
the slave States until slavery should be extinguished, 
the Union should be dissolved, he could not have shown 
it. I understand what he would do. He would say, 



90 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

"I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the 
result of what you say." But I have the right to ask, 
and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a 
form that an ordinary reader or listener would take it 
as an expression from me? 

13. In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 
1 7th, I thought I might as well attend to my business 
a little ; and I recalled his attention as well as I could 
to this charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I 
called his attention to the fact that he had acknowledged 
in my hearing twice that he had carefully read the 
speech ; and, in the language of the lawyers, 1 as he had 
twice read the speech, and still had put in no plea or 
answer, I took a default on him. I insisted that I 
had a right then to renew that charge of conspiracy. 
Ten days afterward I met the judge at Clinton, — that 
is to say, I was on the ground, but not in the discussion, 
— and heard him make a speech. Then he comes in 
with his plea to this charge, for the first time ; and his 
plea when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted 
to this : that he never had any talk with Judge Taney 
or the President of the United States with regard to 
the Dred Scott decision before it was made ; I (Lincoln) 
ought to know that the man who makes a charge with- 
out knowing it to be true falsifies as much as he who 
knowingly tells a falsehood ; and, lastly, that he would 
pronounce the whole thing a falsehood ; but he would 

1 The legal terms which occur in this paragraph must have been 
meaningless to many in the audience, though familiar enough to 
Douglas, Lincoln, and the many politicians present who were lawyers. 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 91 

make no personal application of the charge of false- 
hood, not because of any regard for the "kind, amiable, 
intelligent gentleman," but because of his own personal 
self-respect ! I have understood since then (but [turn- 
ing to Judge Douglas] will not hold the judge to it if 
he is not willing) that he has broken through the " self- 
respect," and has got to saying the thing out. The 
judge nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me 
that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the 
judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a 
question of veracity with me. I know the judge is a 
great man, while I am only a small man; but I feel 
that I have got him. I demur to that plea. I waive 
all objections that it was not filed till after default was 
taken, and demur to it upon the merits. What if Judge 
Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and 
the President before the Dred Scott decision was made : 
does it follow that he could not have had as perfect an 
understanding without talking as with it? I am not 
disposed to stand upon my legal advantage. I am 
disposed to take his denial as being like an answer in 
chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, informa- 
tion, nor belief in the existence of such a conspiracy. 
I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as 
though he had put it in these words. And now, I 
ask, even if he had done so, have not I a right to prove 
it on him, and to offer the evidence of more than two 
witnesses, by whom to prove it; and, if the evidence 
proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad 
answer, denying all knowledge, information, or belief, 



92 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

disturb the fact? It can onlv show that he was used 
by conspirators, and was not a leader of them. 

14. Now in regard to his reminding me of the moral 
rule that persons who tell what they clo not know to 
be true falsify as much as those who knowingly tell 
falsehoods. I remember the rule, and it must be borne 
in mind that in what I have read to you I do not say 
that I know such a conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, 
I believe it. If the judge says that I do not believe it, 
then he says what he does not know, and falls within 
his own rule that he who asserts a thing which he does 
not know to be true falsifies as much as he who know- 
ingly tells a falsehood. I want to call your attention 
to a little discussion on that branch of the case, and 
the evidence which brought my mind to the conclusion 
which I expressed as my belief. If, in arraying that 
evidence, I had stated anything which was false or 
erroneous, it needed but that Judge Douglas should 
point it out, and I would have taken it back with all 
the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. 
If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he 
will point it out, it will not even ruffle me to take it 
back. But, if he will not point out anything erroneous 
in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show by a 
comparison of the evidence that I have reasoned falsely 
than to call the ''kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman ' ; 
a liar? If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is 
the vocation of an able debater to show by argument 
that I have wandered to an erroneous conclusion. I 
want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska 



LINCOLN -DOUGLAS DEBATES 93 

bill which Judge Douglas has quoted: "it being the 
true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate 
slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it 
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly 
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of 
the United States." Thereupon Judge Douglas and 
others began to argue in favor of " popular sovereignty," 
— the right of the people to have slaves if they wanted 
them, and to exclude slavery if they did not want them. 
"But," said, in substance, a senator from Ohio (Mr. 
Chase, I believe), "we more than suspect that you do 
not mean to allow the people to exclude slavery if they 
w T ish to ; and, if you do mean it, accept an amendment 
which I propose expressly authorizing the people to 
exclude slavery." I believe I have the amendment 
here before me, which was offered, and under which 
the people of the Territory, through their proper repre- 
sentatives, might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence 
of slavery therein. And now I state it as a fact, to 
be taken back if there is any mistake about it, that 
Judge Douglas and those acting with him voted that 
amendment down. I now think that those men who 
voted it down had a real reason for doing so. They 
know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we 
have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding 
that, "under the Constitution," the people cannot ex- 
clude slavery, — I say it looks to outsiders, poor, 
simple, "amiable, intelligent gentlemen," as though the 
niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott de- 



94 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

cision in, — a niche which would have been spoiled 
by adopting the amendment. And now I say again, 
if this was not the reason, it will avail the judge much 
more to calmly and good-humoredly point out to these 
people what that other reason was for voting the 
amendment down than swelling himself up to vociferate 
that he may be provoked to call somebody a liar. 

15. Again, there is in that same quotation from the 
Nebraska bill this clause : "it being the true intent and 
meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State." I have always been puzzled to 
know what business the word " State' 1 had in that 
connection. Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. 
He knows what he put it there for. We outsiders 
cannot say what he put it there for. The law they 
were passing was not about States, and was not making 
provision for States. What was it placed there for? 
After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds that 
the people cannot exclude slavery from a Territory, 
if another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that 
they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover 
that, when the word was originally put there, it was 
in view of something which was to come in due time, 
we shall see that it was the other half of something. I 
now say again, if there is any different reason for putting 
it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humored way, with- 
out calling anybody a liar, can tell what the reason was. 

16. When the judge spoke at Clinton, he came very 
near making a charge of falsehood against me. He 
used, as I found it printed in a newspaper, which, I 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 95 

remember, was very nearly like the real speech, the 
following language : — 

I did not answer the charge [of conspiracy] before for the reason 
that I did "not suppose there was a man in America with a heart 
so corrupt as to believe such a charge could be true. I have too 
much respect for Mr. Lincoln to suppose he is serious in making 
the charge. 

17. I confess this is rather a curious view, that out 
of respect for me he should consider I was making what 
I deemed rather a grave charge in fun. I confess it 
strikes me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the 
judge did not for a moment believe that there was a 
man in America whose heart was so " corrupt" as to 
make such a charge, and as he places me among the 
"men in America" who have hearts base enough to 
make such a charge, I hope he will excuse me if I hunt 
out another charge very like this; and, if it should 
turn out that in hunting I should find that other, and 
it should turn out to be Judge Douglas himself who 
made it, I hope he will reconsider this question of the 
deep corruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe 
to me. In Judge Douglas's speech of March 22, 1858, 
which I hold in my hand, he says : — 

In this connection there is another topic to which I desire to 
allude. I seldom refer to the course of newspapers or notice the 
articles which they publish in regard to myself ; but the course of 
the Washington Union x has been so extraordinary for the last 
two or three months that I think it well enough to make some 
allusion to it. It has read me out of the Democratic party every 

1 This paper was the official organ of President Buchanan with 
whom Douglas had broken over the question of the Lecompton 
Constitution. 



96 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

other day, at least for two or three months, and keeps reading 
me out, and, as if it had not succeeded, still continues to read me 
out, using such terms as "traitor," "renegade," "deserter," and 
other kind and polite epithets of that nature. Sir, I have no 
vindication to make of my Democracy against the Washington 
Union, or any other newspaper. I am willing to allow my 
history and actions for the last twenty years to speak for them- 
selves as to my political principles and my fidelity to political 
obligations. The Washington Union has a personal grievance. 
When the editor w r as nominated for public printer, I declined to 
vote for him, and stated that at some time I might give my 
reasons for doing so. Since I declined to give that vote, this 
scurrilous abuse, these vindictive and constant attacks, have 
been repeated almost daily on me. Will my friend from 
Michigan read the article to which I allude? 



l o c 



18. This is a part of the speech. You must excuse 
me from reading the entire article of the Washington 
Union, as Mr. Stuart read it for Mr. Douglas. The 
judge goes on and sums up, as I think, correctly : — 

Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions ad- 
vanced boldly by the Washington Union editorially, and appar- 
ently authoritatively ; and any man who questions any of them 
is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Free Soiler, a fanatic. The 
propositions are, first, that the primary object of all government 
at its original institution is the protection of person and property , 
second, that the Constitution of the United States declares that 
the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States ; and that, there- 
fore, thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which 
prohibit the citizens of one State from settling in another with 
their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are 
direct violations of the original intention ot the government and 
Constitution of the United States , and, fourth, that the emanci- 
pation of the slaves of the Northern States was a gross outrage 
on the rights of property, inasmuch as it was involuntarily done 
on the part of the owner. 

Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 97 

17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first article 
giving the adhesion of the Union to the Lecompton Constitution. 1 
It was in these words : — 

"Kansas and her Constitution. The vexed question is 
settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger is 
passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and gone." 

And a column nearly of the same sort. Then, when you come 
to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same 
doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the 
Union. What is it? 

" Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and 
higher than any constitutional sanction; 2 and the right of the 
owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as 
inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever." 

Then in the schedule is a provision that the constitution may 
be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. 

" But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property 
in the ownership of slaves." 

It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution 
that they are identical in spirit with the authoritative article in 
the Washington Union of the day previous to its indorsement of 
this constitution. 

19. I pass over some portions of the speech, and I 
hope that any one who feels interested in this matter 
will read the entire section of the speech, and see whether 
I do the judge an injustice. He proceeds : 

When I saw that article in the-Union of the 17th of November, 
followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on 
the 18th of November, and this clause in the constitution asserting 
the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within 
its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the 
sovereignty of the States of this Union. 

1 See Appendix A. 

2 Lincoln held rather that the rights of property were inferior to 
the rights of person. See the letter to H. L. Pierce and others, 
April 6, 1859. in this volume. 



98 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

20. I stop the quotation there, again requesting that 
it may all be read. I have read all of the portion I 
desire to comment upon. What is this charge that 
the judge thinks I must have a very corrupt heart 
to make ? It was a purpose on the part of certain high 
functionaries to make it impossible for the people of 
one State to prohibit the people of any other State 
from entering it with their " property" so called, and 
making it a slave State. In other words, it was a 
charge implying a design to make the institution of 
slavery national. And now I ask your attention to 
what judge Douglas has himself done here. I know 
that he made that part of the speech as a reason why 
he had refused to vote for a certain man for public 
printer ; but, when we get at it, the charge itself is the 
very one I made against him, that he thinks I am so 
corrupt for uttering. Now whom does he make that 
charge against? Does he make it against that news- 
paper editor merely ? No : he says it is identical in 
spirit with the Lecompton Constitution, and so the 
framers of that constitution are brought in with the 
editor, of the newspaper in that "fatal blow being 
struck." He did not call it a " conspiracy." In his 
language it is a " fatal blow being struck." And, if 
the words carry the meaning better when changed from 
a " conspiracy" into a "fatal blow being struck," I 
will change my expression, and call it "fatal blow being 
struck." We see the charge made not merely against 
the editor of the Union, but all the framers of the Le- 
compton Constitution ; and not only so, but the article 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 99 

was an authoritative article. By whose authority ? Is 
there any question but that he means it was by the 
authority of the President and his cabinet, — the ad- 
ministration ? ri Is there any sort of question but that 
he means to make that charge? Then there are the 
editors of the Union, the framers of the Lecompton 
Constitution, the President of the United States and 
his cabinet, and all the supporters of the Lecompton 
Constitution, in Congress and out of Congress, who are 
all involved in this " fatal blow being struck." I 
commend to Judge Douglas's consideration the ques- 
tion of how corrupt a man's heart must be to make 
such a charge ! 

21. Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the 
subject, in the little time I have left, to which to call 
your attention ; and, as I shall come to a close at the 
end of that branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy 
quite all the time allotted to me. Although on these 
questions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I 
could not enter upon another head and discuss it 
property without running over my time. I ask the 
attention of the people here assembled and elsewhere 
to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every 
day as bearing upon this question of making slavery 
national. Not going back to the records, but taking 

1 The strength of Douglas's following in the North was greatly 
increased by his break with Buchanan over the admission of Kansas 
with the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. This stand of 
Douglas against his party leaders had won over Horace Greeley, 
who urged the Republicans of Illinois to nominate no candidate in 
opposition to Douglas, the Democratic nominee, in the senatorial 
contest which called forth the present debates. 



100 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yester- 
day and day before, and makes constantly all over the 
country, — I ask vour attention to them. In the 
first place, what is necessary to make the institution 
national? Not war. There is no danger that the 
people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, 
with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march 
into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no dan- 
ger of our going over there and making war upon them. 
Then what is necessary for the nationalization of sla- 
very? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It 
is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State 
under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they 
have already decided that under the Constitution 
neither Congress nor the Territorial legislature can 
do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the 
whole thing is done. This being true, and this being 
the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made national, 
let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day 
to that end. In the first place, let us see what influence 
he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and like 
communities, public sentiment is everything. With 
public sentiment, nothing can fail : without it, nothing 
can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public 
sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes 
or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and de- 
cisions possible or impossible to be executed. This 
must be borne in mind, as also the additional fact 
that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great 
that it is enough for many men to profess to believe 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 101 

anything when they once find out that Judge Douglas 

professes to believe it. Consider also the attitude he 
occupies at the head of a large party, - - a party, which 
he claims has a majority of all the voters in the country. 
22. This man sticks to a decision which forbids the 
people of a Territory to exclude slavery, and he does 
so not because he says it is right in itself, — he does 
not give any opinion on that, — but because it has 
been decided by the court ; and, being decided by the 
court, he is, and you are, bound to take it in your po- 
litical action as law, — not that he judges at all of its 
merits, but because a decision of the court is to him a 
"Thus saith the Lord." He places it on that ground 
alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing 
himself unreservedly to this decision commits him to 
the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not 
commit himself on account of the merit or demerit 
of the decision, but it is a " Thus saith the Lord." The 
next decision, as much as this, will be a 'Thus saith 
the Lord." There is nothing that can divert or turn 
him away from this decision. It is nothing that I 
point out to him that his great prototype, General 
Jackson, 1 did not believe in the binding force of de- 
cisions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson 1 did not 
so believe. I have said that I have often heard him 
approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision 
of the Supreme Court pronouncing a national bank 
constitutional. He says I did not hear him say so. 
He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he 

1 Both Democrats. 



102 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

ought to know better than I ; but I will make no ques- 
tion about this thing, though it still seems to me that 
I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him, 
though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati 
platform, which affirms that Congress cannot charter a 
national bank, in the teeth of that old standing de- 
cision that Congress can charter a bank. And I re- 
mind him of another piece of history on the question 
of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of 
Illinois history, belonging to a time when a large party 
to which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased 
with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, be- 
cause they had decided that a governor could not re- 
move a secretary of state. You will find the whole 
story in Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that 
Judge Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor 
of oversloughing that decision by the mode of adding 
five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. 
Not only so, but it ended in the judge's sitting down on 
the very bench as one of the five new judges to break 
down the four old ones. It was in this way precisely 
that he got his title of judge. Now, when the judge tells 
me that men appointed conditionally to sit as members 
of a court will have to be catechised beforehand upon 
some subject, I say, "You know, judge: you have 
tried it." When he says a court of this kind will lose 
the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and dis- 
graced by such a proceeding, I say, "You know best, 
judge : you have been through the mill." 
23. But I cannot shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose 






LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 103 

from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate 
animal (I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when 
he has once got his teeth fixed, — you may cut off a 
leg or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax 
his hold. And so I may point out to the judge, and 
say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning 
of his political life to the present time, with attacks 
upon judicial decisions, — I may cut off limb after 
limb of his public record, and strive to wrench from 
him a single dictum of the court, yet I cannot divert 
him from it. He hangs to the last to the Dred Scott 
decision. These things show there is a purpose strong 
as death and eternity for which he adheres to this de- 
cision, and for which he will adhere to all other decisions 
of the same court. [A Hibernian : " Give us something 
besides Drid Scott."] Yes; no doubt you want to 
hear something that don't hurt. Now, having spoken 
of the Dred Scott decision, one more word, and I am 
done. Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of a statesman, 
the man for whom I fought all my humble life, — Henry 
Clay once said of a class of men who would repress 
all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation 
that they must, if they would do this, go back to the 
era of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which 
thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow 
out the moral lights around us ; they must penetrate 
the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty ; 
and then, not till then, could they perpetuate slavery 
in this country! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, 
by his example and vast influence, doing that very 



104 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

thing in this community when he says that the negro 
has nothing in the Declaration of Independence. Henry 
Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge Douglas 
is going back to the era of our Revolution, and to the 
extent of his ability muzzling the cannon which thun- 
ders its annual joyous return. When he invites any 
people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he is 
blowing out the moral lights around us. When he 
says he " cares not whether slavery is voted down or 
voted up," — that it is a sacred right of self-govern- 
ment, — he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human 
soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love 
of liberty in this American people. And now I will 
only say that when, by all these means and appliances, 
Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public senti- 
ment to an exact accordance with his own views, — 
when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these 
sentiments, — when they shall come to repeat his views 
and to avow his principles, and to say all that he says 
on these mighty questions, — then it needs only the 
formality of the second Dred Scott decision, which he 
indorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in 
all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as 
South. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

From Lincoln's Opening Speech, the Second Joint 
Debate, at Freeport, August 27, 1858 

.... I will take up the Judge's interrogatories 
as I find them printed in the Chicago Times, and answer 



LINCOLN -DO UGLAS DEB. 1 TES 105 

them seriatim. . . . The first one of these interroga- 
tories is in these words : — 

Question 1. — "I desire to know whether Lincoln 
to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the. un- 
conditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave law?' 

Answer. — I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor 
of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave law. 

Q. 2. "I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission 
of any more slave States into the Union, even if the 
people want them?" 

A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against 
the admission of any more slave States into the Union. 

Q. 3. "I want to know whether he stands pledged 
against the admission of a new State into the Union 
with such a constitution as the people of that State 
may see fit to make?" 

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of 
a new State into the Union, with such a constitution 
as the people of that State may see fit to make. 

Q. 4. "I want to know whether he stands to-day 
pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia?" 

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia. 

Q. 5. ".I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between 
the different States?" 

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the 
slave trade between the different States. 



10G LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Q. 6. "I desire to know whether he stands pledged to 
prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United 
States, north as well as south of the Missouri Com- 
promise line?" 

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a 
belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit 
slavery in all the United States Territories. 

Q. 7. "I desire him to answer whether he is opposed 
to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery 
is first prohibited therein ? " 

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition 
of territory ; and, in any given case, I would or would 
not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might 
think such acquisition would or would not aggravate 
the slavery question among ourselves. 

Now, my friends, it will be perceived, upon an ex- 
amination of these questions and answers, that so far 
I have only answered that I was not pledged to this, 
that, or the other. The Judge has not framed his in- 
terrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and 
I have answered in strict accordance with the interrog- 
atories, and have answered truly that I am not pledged 
at all upon any of the points to which I have answered. 
But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of 
his interrogatory. I am rather disposed to take up at 
least some of these questions, and state what I really 
think upon them. 

As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive-Slave 
law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now 
hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 107 

of the United States, the people of the Southern 
States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive- 
Slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing 
to say in regard to the existing Fugitive-Slave law, 
further than that I think it should have been framed 
so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain 
to it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch 
as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an altera- 
tion or modification of that law, I would not be the 
man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon 
the general question of slavery. 

In regard to the other question, of whether 1 am 
pledged to the admission of any more slave States into 
the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would 
be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of 
having to pass upon that question. I should be ex- 
ceedingly glad to know that there would never be 
another slave State admitted into the Union; but 
I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the 
Territories during the territorial existence of any one 
given Territory, and then the people shall, having a 
fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt 
the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to 
adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual 
presence of the institution among them, I see no alter- 
native, if we own the country, but to admit them into 
the Union. 

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer 
to the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the 
second. 



10S LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia. In relation to that, I 
have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be 
exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses 
the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a mem- 
ber of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be 
in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, unless it would be upon these con- 
ditions : First, that the abolition should be gradual; 
second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of 
qualified voters in the District; and third, that com- 
pensation should be made to unwilling owners. With 
these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly 
glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay, 
"sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our na- 
tion." 

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here 
that, as to the question of the abolition of the slave 
trade between the different States, I can truly answer, 
as I have, that I am pledged to nothing about it. It 
is a subject to which I have not given that mature 
consideration that would make me feel authorized to 
state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. 
In other words, that question has never been promi- 
nently enough before me to induce me to investigate 
whether we really have the constitutional power to do it. 
I could investigate it if I had sufficient time to bring 
myself to a conclusion upon that subject; but I have 



LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 1*9 

not done so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to 
Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I should 
be of opinion that Congress does possess the constitu- 
tional power to abolish the slave trade among the 
different States, I should still not be in favor of the 
exercise of that power, unless upon some conservative 
principle as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in 
relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. 

My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should 
be prohibited in all the Territories of the United States 
is full and explicit within itself, and cannot be made 
clearer by any comments of mine. So I suppose in 
regard to the question whether I am opposed to the ac- 
quisition of any more territory unless slavery is first 
prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could add 
nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better 
understood, than the answer which I have placed in 
writing. 

Now in all this the judge has me, and he has me on 
the record. I suppose he had flattered himself that 
I was really entertaining one set of opinions for one 
place, and another set for another place ; that I was 
afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. 
What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast au- 
dience as strongly tending to Abolitionism as any 
audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am 
saying that which, if it would be offensive to any per- 
sons and render them enemies to myself, would be 
offensive to persons in this audience. 



110 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

I now proceed to propound to the judge the inter- 
rogatories, so far as I have framed them. I will bring 
forward a new installment when I get them ready I 
will bring them forward now only reaching to number 
four. 

The first one is : 

Question 1. — If the people of Kansas shall, by means 
entirely unobjectionable in other respects, adopt a 
State constitution, and ask admission into the Union 
under it, before they have the requisite number of 
inhabitants according to the English bill, 1 — some 
ninety-three thousand, — will you vote to admit 
them ? 

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, 
in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of 
the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior 
to the formation of a State constitution ? 2 



1 See Appendix A, Lecompton Constitution. 

2 Douglas's reply to this interrogatory was as folio ,vs : "I answer 
emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times 
from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a Ter- 
ritory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior 
to the formation of a State constitution. ... It matters not what 
way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract 
question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under 
the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it 
or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist 
a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police 
regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by 
the local legislature ; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they 
will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legisla- 
tion effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, 
on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. 
Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be 
on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a 



LINCOLN -DOUGLAS DEBATES 111 

Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States 
shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from 
their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, 
and following such decision as a rule of political action? 

Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional ter- 
ritory, in disregard of how such acquisition may affect 
the nation on the slavery question ? 

LINCOLN'S FIFTH QUESTION 

From Lincoln 1 s Reply, Third Joint Debate, at Jonesboro, 

September 15, 1858 

.... My fifth interrogatory is this : 

If the slave-holding citizens of a United States Ter- 
ritory should need and demand Congressional legisla- 
tion for the protection of their slave property in such 
Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote 
for or against such legislation? 

slave Territory or a free. Territory is perfect and complete under 
the Nebraska Bill." 

Douglas had enunciated this principle previously, in the speech 
at Bloomington, July 16, 1858, in the presence of Lincoln. His 
words were: "If the people of a Territory want slavery, they will 
encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police 
regulations, patrol laws, and slave code ; if they do not want it, they 
will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead 
as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition, especially 
if, in addition their legislation is unfriendly, as it would be if they 
were opposed to it." 

This doctrine of "unfriendly legislation," which virtually nullifies 
the Dred Scott decision, is usually called the Freeport Doctrine, 
and Lincoln is credited with driving Douglas into the statement 
which ruined his political standing in the South. What Lincoln 
really did was to force Douglas to restate the doctrine in a debate 
which was sure to be read throughout the country. 



112 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

THE GREAT ISSUE 

From Lincoln's Reply, the Last Joint Debate, at Alton, 

October 15, 1858 

.... That is the real issue. That is the issue that 
will continue in this country when these poor tongues 
of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the 
eternal struggle between these two principles — right 
and wrong — throughout the world. They are the 
two principles that have stood face to face from the 
beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. 
The one is the common right of humanity, and the other 
the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in 
whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit 
that says, " You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll 
eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether 
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the 
people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their 
labor, or from one race of men as an apology for en- 
slaving another race, it is the same tyrannical prin- 
ciple. 




Photo by De Witt Ward 

Statue of Lincoln by Daniel C. French, 
Washington, D.C. 



LETTER TO J. U. BROWN 113 

A SUMMARY OF LINCOLN'S POSITION , 
REGARDING SLAVERY 

Captaia Brown, who, like Lincoln, was a native of Kentucky, 
had been a Whig until 1857, when he declared himself a "Lincoln 
Republican." In 1858, through Lincoln's influence, he was nom- 
inated on the Republican ticket for the Illinois legislature. Late 
in the campaign he asked Lincoln for a lucid statement of the latter's 
views on negro equality. In reply Lincoln sent him a little note- 
book filled with clippings from several of his speeches and ac- 
companied by the following letter. A facsimile of the notebook 
was published in 1901 under the title Abraham Lincoln, His Book. 

Springfield, Oct. 18, 1858 
Hon. J. U. Brown, 

My dear Sir : — 

I do not perceive how I can express myself more 
plainly than I have in the foregoing extracts. In four 
of them I have expressly disclaimed all intention to 
bring about social and political equality between the 
white and black races and in all the rest I have done 
the same thing by clear implication. 

I have made it equally plain that I think the negro 
is included in the word "men" used in the Declaration 
of Independence. 

I believe the declaration that "all men are created 
equal" is the great fundamental principle upon which 
our free institutions rest; that negro slavery is viola- 
tive of that principle ; but that, by our frame of govern- 
ment, that principle has not been made one of legal 
obligation ; that by our frame of government, States 
which have slavery are to retain it, or surrender it at 
their own pleasure ; and that all others — individuals, 
free States and national Government - - are constitu- 
tionally bound to leave them alone about it. 



114 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

I believe our Government was thus framed because 
of the necessity springing from the actual presence of 
slavery, when it was framed. 

That such necessity does not exist in the Territories 
when slavery is not present. 

In his Mendenhall speech Mr. Clay says: "Now as 
an abstract principle there is no doubt of the truth of 
that declaration (all men created equal), and it is de- 
sirable, in the original construction of society, to keep 
it in view as a great fundamental principle." 

Again, in the same speech Mr. Clay says: "If a 
state of nature existed and we were about to lay the 
foundations of society, no man would be more strongly 
opposed than I should to incorporate the institution 
of slavery among its elements." 

Exactly so. In our new free Territories, a state of 
nature does exist. In them Congress lays the founda- 
tions of society and in laying those foundations, I say, 
with Mr. Clay, it is desirable that the declaration of the 
equality of all men shall be kept in view as a great 
fundamental principle, and that Congress, which lays 
the foundations of society, should, like Mr. Clay, be 
strongly opposed to the incorporation of slavery and 
its elements. 

But it does not follow that social and political 
equality between whites and blacks must be incor- 
porated because slavery must not. The declaration 
does not so require. 

Yours as over, 

A. Lincoln. 



LETTER TO H. L. PIERCE 115 

THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN 

PARTIES 

To H. L. Pierce and Others. 

Springfield, 111., 6 April, 1859 

Gentlemen : — Your kind note inviting me to attend 
a festival in Boston, on the 28th instant, in honor of 
the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. 
My engagements are such that I cannot attend. 

Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two 
great political parties were first formed in this country, 
that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them 
and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both 
curious and interesting that those supposed to descend 
politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should 
now be celebrating his birthday in their own original 
seat of empire, while those claiming political descent 
from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name 
everywhere. 

Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party was 
formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the 
personal rights of men, holding the rights of property 
to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and assuming 
that the so-called Democracy of to-day are the Jeffer- 
son, and their opponents the anti- Jefferson, party, it 
will be equally interesting to note how completely the 
two have changed hands as to the principle upon which 
they were originally supposed to be divided. The 
Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to 
be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another 



116 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

man's right of property; Republicans, on the con- 
trary, are for both the man and the dollar, but in case 
of conflict the man before the dollar. 

I remember being once much amused at seeing two 
partially intoxicated men engaged in a fight with their 
great-coats on, which fight, after a long and rather 
harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself 
out of his own coat and into that of the other. If the 
two leading parties of this day are really identical with 
the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have 
performed the same feat as the two drunken men. 

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the 
principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this 
nation. One would state with great confidence that 
he could convince any sane child that the simpler 
propositions of Euclid are true ; but nevertheless he 
would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the defini- 
tions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the 
definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they 
are denied and evaded, with no small show of success. 
One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities." 
Another bluntly calls them " self-evident lies." And 
others insidiously argue that they apply to " superior 
races." These expressions, differing in form, are 
identical in object and effect - - the supplanting the 
principles of free government, and restoring those of 
classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would de- 
light a convocation of crowned heads plotting against 
she people. They are the vanguard, the miners and 
tappers, of returning despotism. We must repulse 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 117 

them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of 
compensation ; and he who would be no slave must 
consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom 
to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a 
just God, cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson 
— to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle 
for national independence by a single people, had the 
coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a mere 
revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable 
to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that 
to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and 
a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappear- 
ing tyranny and oppression. 

Your obedient servant, 
A. Lincoln. 

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT COOPER UNION, 

NEW YORK 

February 27, 1860 

Lincoln frequently remarked that the Cooper Union Address 
and Brady's photograph of him (taken the same month) made 
him President. The speech was one of a series of lectures de- 
livered under the auspices of the Young Men's Central Republi- 
can Union of New York City. Lincoln was introduced to the 
distinguished audience by William Cullen Bryant, the great poet, 
editor, and liberal leader. "It was worth coming East just to 
meet Bryant," said Lincoln; and the political events which 
followed showed that Bryant had been equally impressed by the 
personality of Lincoln. Beginning under the handicap of his 
awkward bearing, ill-fitting clothes, and natural nervousness, 
Lincoln kindled with his subject until he stood revealed as the 
giant who had dominated the Bloomington Convention. Horace 
Greeley, who was in the audience and who had previously 



118 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

supported Douglas in the senatorial contest, of 1858, wrote in 
the New York Tribune, "No man ever before made such an 
impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." Follow- 
ing this speech, Lincoln made a short tour of New England, 
returning to Illinois a recognized leader in national politics. 

It will be observed that this address, probably the greatest 
argumentative speech ever delivered in this country, is a con- 
tinuation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Taking his text 
from Senator Douglas, Lincoln uses evidence gathered with 
painstaking care to show the attitude of the fathers toward the 
control of slavery in the Federal Territories. Then from the 
unassailable vantage of historical authority he controverts the 
Southern charges against the Republican Party, — charges of 
sectionalism, of radicalism, of making the slavery question 
prominent, of stirring up a slave insurrection. He warns the 
South that it will be of no avail to break up the Republican Party, 
and he defines for them his attitude toward their secession threat 
and toward the Dred Scott decision. Finally he addresses the 
men of his Own party, appealing to them to exercise good temper 
and stating for them the great moral issue. 

Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of New York : 

1. The facts with which I shall deal this evening 
are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything 
new in the general use I shall make of them. If there 
shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting 
the facts, and the inferences and observations follow- 
ing that presentation. In his speech last autumn at 
Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, 
Senator Douglas said:f'Our fathers, when they 
framed the government under which we live, under- 
stood this question, just as well, and even better, than 
we do now.") 1 

2. I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for 
this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 119 

precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion 
between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy 
headed by Senator Douglas. 1 It simply leaves the in- 
quiry : What was the understanding those fathers 
had of the question mentioned? 

3. What is the frame of government under which 
we live? The answer must be, "The Constitution of 
the United States." That Constitution consists of the 
original, framed in 1787, and under which the present 
government first went into operation, and twelve sub- 
sequently framed amendments, the first ten of which 
were framed in 1789. 

4. Who were our fathers that framed the Consti- 
tution? I suppose the " thirty-nine " who signed the 
original instrument may be fairly called our fathers 
who framed that part of the present government. It 
is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is 
altogether true to say they fairly represented the opin- 
ion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. 
Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and acces- 
sible to quite all, need not now be repeated. 

5. I take these " thirty-nine," for the present, as 
being "our fathers who framed the government under 
which we live." What is the question which, according 
to the text, those fathers understood "just as well, 
and even better, than we do now"? 

1 Douglas's break with the Administration had helped to disrupt 
his party, and his Freeport doctrine had further alienated Democrats 
in the South. In February, 1859, Jefferson Davis denounced him 
in the Senate as guilty of party "heresy. The effect of this split was 
seen in the elections of 1860 when there were two Democratic tickets 
on the ballot. 



120 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

6. It is this : Does the proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, 
forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in our Federal Territories? 

7. Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirma- 
tive, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation 
and denial form an issue ; and this issue — this ques- 
tion — is precisely what the text declares our fathers 
understood "better than we." Let us now inquire 
whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted 
upon this question ; and, if they did, how they acted 
upon it — how they expressed that better understanding. 
In 1784, three years before the Constitution, the 
United States then owning the Northwestern Terri- 
tory, and no other, the Congress of the Confederation 
had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in 
that Territory; and four of the " thirty-nine ,3 who 
afterward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, 
and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sher- 
man, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted 
for the prohibition, thus showing that, in their under- 
standing, no line, dividing local from Federal authority, 
nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal Gov- 
ernment to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 
The other of the four, James McHenry, voted against 
the prohibition, showing that for some cause he thought 
it improper to vote for it. 

8. In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while 
the convention was in session framing it, and while 
the Northwestern Territory Still was the only Terri- 



y COOPER UNION ADDRESS 121// 

lory owned by the United States, the same question 
of prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came be- 
fore the Congress of the Confederation ; and two more 
of the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed the Consti- 
tution were in that Congress, and voted on the question. 
They were William Blount and William Few; and 
they both voted for the prohibition — thus showing 
that in their understanding no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. This time the prohibition became 
a law, being part of what is now well known as the 
Ordinance of '87. 

9. The question of Federal control of slavery in the 
Territories seems not to have been directly before the 
convention which framed the original Constitution ; 
and hence it is not recorded that the " thirty-nine," 
or any of them, while engaged on that instrument, 
expressed any opinion on that precise question. 

10. In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under 
the Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the 
Ordinance of '87, including the prohibition of slavery 
in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act 
was reported by one of the "thirty-nine" — Thomas 
Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its 
stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed 
both branches without ayes and nays, which is equiv- 
alent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there 

, were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who frame 



/ 



122 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, 
Nicholas Oilman, William S. Johnson, Roger Sher- 
man, Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimmons, William 
Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Pater- 
son, George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, 
Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, and James Madison. 

11. This shows that, in their understanding, no 
line dividing local from Federal authority, nor any- 
thing in the Constitution, properlv forbade Congress 
to prohibit slavery in the Federal Territory ; else both 
their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to 
support the Constitution, would have constrained 
them to oppose the prohibition. 

12. Again, George Washington, another of the 
"thirty-nine," was then President of the United States, 
and as such approved and signed the bill, thus com- 
pleting its validity as a law, and thus showing that, 
in his understanding, no line dividing local from 
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to 
slavery in Federal territory. 

13. No great while after the adoption of the orig- 
inal Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Fed- 
eral Government the country now constituting the 
State of Tennessee ; and a few years later Georgia 
ceded that which now constitutes the States of Missis- 
sippi and Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was 
made a condition by the ceding States that the Fed- 
eral Government should not prohibit slavery in the 
ceded country. Besides this, slavery was then actually 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 123 

in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, 
Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did not 
absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they 
did interfere with it — take control of it — even there, 
to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the 
Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization 
they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Terri- 
tory from any place without the United States, by 
fine, and giving freedom to slaves so brought. This 
act passed both branches of Congress without yeas 
and nays. In that Congress were three of the " thirty- 
nine' ' who framed the original Constitution. They 
were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham 
Baldwin. They all probably voted for it. Certainly 
they would have placed their opposition to it upon 
record if, in their understanding, any line dividing 
local from Federal authority, or anything in the Con- 
stitution, properly forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 

14. In 1803, the Federal Government purchased 
the Louisiana country. Our former territorial acqui- 
sitions came from certain of our own States ; but this 
Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. 1 
In 1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to 
that part of it which now constitutes the State of 
Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, was 
an old and comparatively large city. There were other 
considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was 
extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the peo- 

1 From France. 



l2 4 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

pie Congress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit 
slavery ; but they did interfere with it - take control 
of it -in a more marked and extensive way than 
thev did in the case of Mississippi. The substance of 
the provision therein made in relation to slaves was :- 

1st. That no slave should be imported into the Ter- 
ritory from foreign parts. 

2d That no slave should be carried into it who had 
been' imported into the United States since the first 

day of May, 1798. 

3d That no slave should be carried into it, except 
by the own.,-, and tor his own use as a settler; the 
penalty in all the cases being a One up. a, the violator of 
the law, and freedom to the slave. 

15 This a.t also was passejl without ayes or nays. 
In the Congress which passed i( there were two of the 
"thirty-nine." They were Abraham Baldwin and Jona- 
than Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, it 
is probable thev both voted tor it. They would not 
have allowed it to pass without recording their oppo- 
sition to it if, in their understanding, it violated e.thei 
the line properly dividing local from Federal author- 
ity or any provision of the Constitution. 

16 In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri ques- 
tion Many votes were taken, by yeas and nays, u 
both branches of Congress, upon the various pha 
of the general question. Two of the '• th.rty-nm. 
-Rufus King and Charles Pinckney - were mem 
bers of that Congress. Mr. King steadily voted id 
slavery prohibition and against all compromises, wbii 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 125 

Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery pro- 
hibition and against all compromises. By this, Mr. 
King showed that, in his understanding, no line divid- 
ing local from Federal authority, nor anything in the 
Constitution, was violated by Congress prohibiting 
slavery in Federal territory ; while Mr. Pinckney, by his 
votes, showed that, in his understanding, there was some 
sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that case. 

17. The cases I have mentioned are the only acts 
of the "thirty-nine," or of any of them, upon the direct 
issue, which I have been able to discover. 

18. To enumerate the persons who thus acted as 
oeing four in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, 
:hree in 1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-1820, there 
vould be thirty of them. But this would be counting 
[ohn Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus 
£ing, and George Read each twice, and Abraham 
Baldwin three times. The true number of those of 
he "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted 
ipon the question which, by the text, they understood 
>etter than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not 
hown to have acted upon it in any way. 

19. Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our 
hirty-nine fathers " who framed the government under 
rfiich we live," who have, upon their official respon- 
ibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very 
uestion which the text affirms they "understood just 
3 well, and even better, than we do now" ; and twenty- 
ne of them — a clear majority of the whole " thirty- 
me" — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of 



12G LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if, in 
their understanding, any proper division between local 
and Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution 
they had made themselves, and sworn to support, for- 
bade the Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted ; 
and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions 
under such responsibility speak still louder. 

20. Two of the twenty-three voted against congres- 
sional prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, 
in the instances in which they acted upon the question. 
But for what reasons they so voted is not known. They 
may have done so because they thought a proper divi- 
sion of local from Federal authority, or some provision 
or principle of the Constitution, stood in the way; or 
they may, without any such question, have voted 
against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be 
sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has 
sworn to support the Constitution can conscientiously 
vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional 
measure, however expedient he may think it ; but one 
may and ought to vote against a measure which he 
deems constitutional if, at the same time, he deems it 
inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set 
down even the two who voted against the prohibition 
as having done so because, in their understanding, any 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any- 
thing in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 

21. The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 127 

far as I have discovered, have left no record of their 
understanding upon the direct question of Federal con- 
trol of slavery in the Federal Territories. But there 
is much reason to believe that their understanding 
upon that question would not have appeared different 
from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been 
manifested at all. 

22. For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, 
I have purposely omitted whatever understanding 
may have been manifested by any person, however 
distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who 
framed the original Constitution; and, for the same 
reason, I have also omitted whatever understanding 
may have been manifested by any of the ' thirty- 
nine " even on any other phase of the general question 
of slavery. If we should look into their acts and dec- 
larations on those other phases, as the foreign slave 
trade, and the morality and policy of slavery gener- 
ally, it would appear to us that, on the direct question 
of Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, 
the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably 
have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that 
sixteen were several of the most noted anti-slavery 
men of those times, — as Dr. Franklin, 1 Alexander 
Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris, 2 — while there was 

1 Although Benjamin Franklin trafficked in slaves in his early 
life, he later became convinced of the wrong of slavery. As presi- 
dent of one of the first abolition societies he signed a petition to Con- 
gress for the abolition of the slave trade. The debate on this peti- 
tion drew forth his last public paper. 

2 In 1777 Gouverneur Morris attempted to have an article abolish- 
ing slavery introduced into the Constitution of New York State. 



128 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it 
may be John Rutledge, of South Carolina. 

23. The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- 
one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly un- 
derstood that no proper division of local from Federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the Fed- 
eral Territories ; while all the rest had probably the 
same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the 
understanding of our fathers who framed the original 
Constitution ; and the text affirms that they under- 
stood the question "better than we." 

24. But, so far, I have been considering the under- 
standing of the question manifested by the framers 
of the original Constitution. In and by the original 
instrument, a mode was provided for amending it; 
and, as I have already stated, the present frame of 
"the government under which we live" consists of 
that original, and twelve amendatory articles framed 
and adopted since. Those who now insist tfyat Federal 
control of slavery in Federal Territories violates the 
Constitution, point us to the provisions which they 
suppose it thus violates ; and, as I understand, they 
all fix upon provisions in these amendatory articles, 
and not in the original instrument. The Supreme 
Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon 
the Fifth Amendment, which provides that no person 
shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or property without 
due process of law"; while Senator Douglas and his 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 129 

peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the Tenth 
Amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated 
to the United States by the Constitution' 1 "are re- 
served to the States respectively, or to the people." 

25. Now, it so happens that these amendments 
were framed by the first Congress which sat under 
the Constitution — the identical Congress which passed 
the act, already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition 
of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only 
was it the same Congress, but they were the identical, 
same individual men who, at the same session, and at 
the same time within the session, had under consider- 
ation, and in progress toward maturity, these consti- 
tutional amendments, and 'this act prohibiting slavery 
in all the territory the nation then owned. The con- 
stitutional amendments were introduced before, and 
passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; 
so that, during the whole pendency of the act to en- 
force the Ordinance, the constitutional amendments 
were also pending. 

26. The seventy-six members of that Congress, in- 
cluding sixteen of the framers of the original Consti- 
tution, as before stated, were preeminently our fathers 
who framed that part of "the government under 
which we live" which is now claimed as forbidding 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the 
Federal Territories. 

27. Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at 
this day to affirm that the two things which that Con- 
gress deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at 



130 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each 
other? And does not such affirmation become impu- 
dently absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, 
from the same mouth, that those who did the two 
things alleged to be inconsistent, understood whether 
they really were inconsistent better than we — better 
than he who affirms that they are inconsistent? 

28. It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine 
framers of the original Constitution, and the seventy- 
six members of Congress which framed the amend- 
ments thereto, taken together, do certainly include 
those who may be fairly called "our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live." And 
so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of 
them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his un- 
derstanding, any proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy 
any one to show that any living man in the whole 
world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present 
century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning 
of the last half of the present century), declare that, 
in his understanding, any proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to 
slavery in the Federal Territories. To those who now 
so declare I give not only "our fathers who framed 
the government under which we live," but with them 
all other living men within the century in which it 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 131 

was framed, among whom to search, and they shall 
not be able to find the evidence of a single man agree- 
ing with them. 

29. Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound 
to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To 
do so would be to discard all the lights of current ex- 
perience — to reject all progress, all improvement. 
What I do say is that if we would supplant the opinions 
and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so 
upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, 
that even their great authority, fairly considered and 
weighed, cannot stand ; and most surely not in a case 
whereof we ourselves declare they understood the 
question better than we. 

30. If any man at this day sincerely believes that a 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territo- 
ries, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position 
by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he 
can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have 
less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into 
the false belief that "our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live" were of the same 
opinion — thus substituting falsehood and deception 
for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man 
at this day sincerely believes "our fathers who framed 
the government under which we live' 3 used and ap- 
plied principles, in other cases, which ought to have 



132 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

led them to understand that a proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or some part of the Consti- 
tution, forbids the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to 
say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the 
responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he 
understands their principles bettter than they did 
themselves ; and especially should he not shirk that 
responsibility by asserting that they " understood the 
question just as well, and even better, than we do now." 

31. But enough! Let all who believe that "our 
fathers who framed the government under which we 
live understood this question, just as well, and even 
better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and 
act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans 
ask — all Republicans desire — in relation to slavery. 
As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, 
as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and 
protected only because of and so far as its actual 
presence among us makes that toleration and protec- 
tion a necessity. Let all the guaranties those fathers 
gave it be not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, main- 
tained. For this Republicans contend, and with this, 
so far as I know or believe, they will be content. 1 

32. And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose 
they will not, — I would address a few words to the 
Southern people. 

1 As a matter of fact those Republicans who had abolition sym- 
pathies might not agree. Some Abolitionists had even advocated 
secession of the free states. 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 133 

33. I would say to them : You consider yourselves 
a reasonable and a just people ; and I consider that in 
the general qualities of reason and justice you are 
not inferior to any other people. Still, when you 
speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce 
us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. 
You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but 
nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your 
contentions with one another, each of you deems an 
unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism'' 
as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such con- 
demnation of us seems to be an indispensable pre- 
requisite — license, so to speak — among you to be 
admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now can you 
or not be prevailed upon to pause and to consider 
whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? 
Bring forward your charges and specifications, and 
then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 
j 34. You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 
makes an issue ; and the burden of proof is upon you. 
You produce your proof ; and what is it ? Why, that 
our party has no existence in your section — gets no 
votes in your section. The fact is substantially true ; 
but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case 
we should, without change of principle, begin to get 
votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be 
sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion ; and yet, 
are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will 
probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, 
for we shall get votes in your section this very year. 



134 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly 
is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact 
that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your 
making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that 
fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so 
until you show that we repel you by some wrong prin- 
ciple or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong 
principle or practice, the fault is ours ; but this brings 
you to where you ought to have started — to a discus- 
sion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our 
principle, put in practice, would wrong your section 
for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then 
our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are 
justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, 
on the question of whether our principle, put in prac- 
tice, would wrong your section ; and so meet us as if 
it were possible that something may be said on our 
side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you 
really believe that the principle which "our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live" 
thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it 
again and again, upon their official oath, is in fact 
so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation 
without a moment's consideration. 

35. Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the 
warning against sectional parties given by Washing- 
ton in his Farewell Address. 1 Less than eight years 

1 In the Farewell Address delivered September 17, 1796, Wash- 
ington said: "In contemplating the causes, which may disturb our 
Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should 
have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical dis- 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 135 

before Washington gave that warning, he had. as 
President of the United States, approved and signed 
an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery 
in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied 
the policy of the Government upon that subject up to 
and at the very moment he penned that warning ; and 
about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette 
that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, 
expressing in the same connection his hope that we 
should at some time have a confederacy of free States. 
36. Bearing this in mind, and seeing that section- 
alism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that 
warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our 
hands against you ? Could Washington himself speak, 
would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, 
who sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate 
it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we 
commend it to you, together with his example point- 
ing to the right application of it. 
^£ 37. But you say you are conservative — eminently 
conservative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, 
or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is 
it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new 
and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical 
old policy on the point in controversy which was 
adopted by "our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live" ; while you with one accord re- 
criminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence 
designing men may endeavour to excite a belief that there is a real 
difference of local interests and views." 



136 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

ject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and in- 
sist upon substituting something new. True, you dis- 
agree among yourselves as to what that substitute 
shall be. You are divided on new propositions and 
plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and de- 
nouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of 
you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some 
for a congressional slave code for the Territories ; 
some for Congress forbidding the Territories to pro- 
hibit slavery within their limits ; some for maintaining 
slavery in the Territories through the judiciary ; some 
for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple " that "if one man 
would enslave another, no third man should object, " 
fantastically called " popular sovereignty"; but never 
a man among you is in favor of Federal prohibition 
of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the 
practice of "our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live." Not one of all your various 
plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the cen- 
tury within which our government originated. Con- 
sider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for 
yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against 
s, are based on the most clear and stable foundations. 
38. Again, you say we have made the slavery ques- 
tion more prominent than it formerly was. We deny 
it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny 
that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who dis- 
carded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and 
still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the 
greater prominence of the question. Would you have 



J 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 137 

that question reduced to its former proportions? Go 
back to that old policy. What has been will be again, 
under the same conditions. If you would have the 
peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and pol- 
icy of the old times. 

*|39. You charge that we stir up insurrections among 
your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? 
Harper's Ferry ! John Brown 1 ! ! John Brown was no 
Republican ; and you have failed to implicate a single 
Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any 
member of our party is guilty in that matter, you 
know it, or you do not know it. If you do know it 
you are inexcusable for not designating the man and 
proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inex- 
cusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting 
in the assertion after you have tried and failed to 
make the proof. You need not be told that persisting 
in a charge which one does not know to be true, is 
simply malicious slander. 

40. Some of you admit that no Republican design- 
edly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, 
but still insist that our doctrines and declarations 
necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. 

1 John Brown (1800-1859), the famous antislavery fanatic, cele- 
brated in the song John Brown's Body. He had migrated to Kansas 
in 1855 and taken part in brutal outrages there, with the intention 
of avenging the slaves. His last and most famous exploit was his 
attempt to incite a revolt among the slaves by means of a raid upon 
Harper's Ferry, Virginia, October 16, 1859. The raid failed; Brown 
was captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee and executed December 2, 
1859. The Republican National Convention of 1860 condemned 
the Harper's Ferry raid as "among the gravest of crimes." 



138 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

We know we hold no doctrine, and make no declara- 
tion, which were not held to and made by "our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live." 
You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. 
When it occurred, some important State elections 
were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with 
the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you 
could get an advantage of us in those elections. The 
elections came, 1 and your expectations were not quite 
fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to him- 
self at least, your charge was a slander, and he was 
not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. 
Republican doctrines and declarations are accompa- 
nied with a continual protest against any interference 
whatever with your slaves, or with you about your 
slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to re- 
volt. True, we do, in common with "our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live," declare 
our belief that slavery is wrong ; but the slaves do 
not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or 
do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Repub- 
lican Party. I believe they would not, in fact, gener- 
ally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in 
their hearing. In your political contests among your- 
selves, each faction charges the other with sympathy 

1 "The results of the state elections showed the Republicans still 
in control in the North, while in the South, the Democrats were 
weakened by a revival of the sometime Whig party sufficiently strong 
to gain a number of congressmen, besides holding Maryland and 
casting increased votes in other states." — The American Nation, 
Vol. 18, p. 246. 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 139 

with Black Republicanism ; and then, to give point 
to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply 
be insurrection, blood, and thunder among the 
slaves. 

41. Slave insurrections are no more common now 
than they were before the Republican Party was or- 
ganized. What induced the Southampton insurrec- 
tion, 1 twenty-eight years ago, in which at least three 
times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? 
You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to 
the conclusion that Southampton was "got up by 
Black Republicanism.' ' In the present state of things 
in the United States, I do not think a general, or even 
a very extensive, slave insurrection is possible. The 
indispensable concert of action cannot be obtained. 
The slaves have no means of rapid communication ; 
nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. 
The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels ; 
but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indis- 
pensable connecting trains. 

42. Much is said by Southern people about the 
affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses; 
and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an upris- 
ing could scarcely be devised and communicated to 
twenty individuals before some one of them, to save 
the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge 
it. This is the rule ; and the slave revolution in 

1 A revolt of negroes led by Nat Turner of Southampton, Virginia, 
in 1831. The revolt occasioned a long debate on the evils of slavery, 
in the Virginia legislature. 



140 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Hayti * was qoI an exception to it, but a case occur- 
ring under peculiar circumstances. The Gunpowder 
Plot of British history, 2 though not connected with 
slaves, was more in point. In that case, only about 
twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of 
them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the 
plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the 
calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, 
and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and 
local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue 
to occur as the natural results of slavery ; but no gen- 
eral insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in 
this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or 
much hopes, for such an event, will be alike disap- 
pointed. 

43. In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many 
years ago, "It is still in our power to direct the pro- 
cess of emancipation and deportation peaceably, and 
in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off 
insensibly ; and their places be, pari passu, filled up 
by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left 
to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the 
prospect held up." 

1 A successful revolution which led to the abolition of slavery in 
1793, after much bloodshed. Toussaint L'Ouverture, one of the 
negro heroes of the struggle, has been celebrated in literature. See, 
for instance, Wordsworth's sonnet and Wendell Phillips's famous 
oration. 

2 In 1605, during the reign of James I, in England, barrels of gun- 
powder were placed in a cellar beneath the Parliament House with 
the purpose of killing the king and the political leaders when Par- 
liament convened. The plot was divulged by Francis Tresham, 
who sought to prevent the death of a relative in the House of Lords. 






COOPER UNION ADDRESS 141 

44. Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, 
that the power of emancipation is in the Federal 
Government. He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the 
power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding 
States only. The Federal Government, however, as 
we insist, has the power of restraining the extension 
of the institution — the power to insure that a slave 
insurrection shall never occur on any American soil 
which is now free from slavery. 

45. John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men 
to get up a revolt among slaves, m which the slaves 
refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that 
the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough 
it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, 
corresponds with the many attempts, related in his- 
tory, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An 
enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till 
he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate 
them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little 
less than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on 
Louis Napoleon, 1 and John Brown's attempt at 
Harper's Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely 
the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old 
England in the one case, and on New England in 
the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two 
things. 

46. And how much would it avail you, if you could, 

1 January, 1858. Orsini was actuated by a belief that Italy had 
been wronged by Louis Napoleon. 



142 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

by the use of John Brown, Helper's book, 1 and the 
like, break up the Republican organizations ? Human 
action can be modified to some extent, but human 
nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and 
a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at 
least a million and a half of votes. You cannot de- 
stroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — 
by breaking up the political organization which rallies 
around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an 
army which has been formed into order in the face of 
your heaviest fire ; but if you could, how much would 
you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it 
out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box into some 
other channel? What would that other channel prob- 
ably be? Would the number of John Browns be less- 
ened or enlarged by the operation? 

47. But you will break up the Union rather than 
submit to a denial of your constitutional rights. 

48. That has a somewhat reckless sound ; but it 
would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we pro- 
posing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you 
of some right plainly written down in the Constitu- 
tion. But we are proposing no such thing. 

49. When you make these declarations you have 
a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed 
constitutional right of yours to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold them there as prop- 

1 The Impending Crisis in the South — How to Meet It, by Hinton 
R. Helper. This book had been recommended in a circular signed 
by two-thirds of the Republican members of Congress and had occa- 
sioned a heated debate. 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 143 

erty. But no such right is specifically written in the 
Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about 
any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a 
right has any existence in the Constitution, even by 
implication. 

50. Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you 
will destroy the government, unless you be allowed to 
construe and force the Constitution as you please, on 
all points in dispute between you and us. You will 
rule or ruin in all events. 

51. This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps 
you will say the Supreme Court has decided the dis- 
puted constitutional question in your favor. Not quite 
so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dic- 
tum and decision, 1 the Court has decided the question 
for you in a sort of way. The Court has substantially 
said, it is your constitutional right to take slaves into 
the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as 
property. When I say the decision was made in a 
sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided court, 
by a bare majority of the judges, and they not quite 
agreeing with one another in the reasons for making 
it ; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters 
disagree with one another about its meaning, and 
that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement 
of fact — the statement in the opinion that "the right 
of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly af- 
firmed in the Constitution." 2 

1 A dictum, "A judicial opinion expressed by judges on a point 
not necessarily arising in the decision of the case." — Webster's Dic- 
tionary. A dictum is not so binding upon future cases as a decision. 

2 See Appendix A, Dred Scott Case. 



144 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

52. An inspection of the Constitution will show 
that the right of property in a slave is not "distinctly 
and expressly affirmed ' : in it. 1 Bear in mind, the 
judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such 
right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution ; but 
they pledge their veracity that it is "distinctly and 
expressly' affirmed there — "distinctly," that is, not 
mingled, with anything else — "expressly," that is, in 
words meaning just that, without the aid of any infer- 
ence, and susceptible of no other meaning. 

53. If they had only pledged their judicial opinion 
that such right is affirmed in the instrument by im- 
plication, it would be open to others to show that 
neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found 
in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, 
in any connection with language alluding to the things 
slave, or slavery; and that, wherever in that instru- 
ment the slave is alluded to, he is called a "person"; 
and wherever his master's legal right in relation to him 
is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor which 
may be due" — as a debt payable in service or labor. 
Also it would be open to show, by contemporaneous 
history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, 
instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose 
to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there 
could be property in man. 

54. To show all this is easy and certain. 

55. When this obvious mistake of the judges shall 

1 There are three references to slavery in the Constitution : Ar- 
ticle I, Sections 2 and 9 ; Article IV, Section 2. 






COOPER UNION ADDRESS 145 

be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to ex- 
pect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, 
and reconsider the conclusion based upon it? 

56. And then it is to be remembered that "our 
fathers who framed the government under which we 
live" — the men who made the Constitution — de- 
cided this same constitutional question in our favor 
long ago : decided it without division among them- 
selves when making the decision ; without division 
among themselves about the meaning of it after it 
was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without 
basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts. 

57. Under all these circumstances, do you really 
feel yourselves justified to break up this government 
unless such a court decision as yours is shall be at 
once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of 
political action? But you will not abide the election 
of a Republican President ! In that supposed event, 
you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you 
say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be 
upon us ! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol 
to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and 
deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a mur- 
derer ! ' ' 

58. To be sure, what a robber demanded of me — 
my money — was my own ; and I had a clear right to 
keep it ; but it was no more my own than my vote is 
my own ; and the threat of death to me, to extort my 
money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to 
extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle. 



146 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

59. A few words now to the Republicans. It is 
exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Con- 
federacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with 
another. Let us Republicans do our part to* have it 
so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing 
through passion and ill temper. Even though the 
Southern people will not so much as listen to us, 
let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to 
them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possi- 
bly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the 
subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us 
determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. 

60. Will they be satisfied if the Territories be un- 
conditionally surrendered to them? We know they 
will not. In all their present complaints against us, 
the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and 
insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them 
if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions 
and insurrections ? We know it will not. We so know, 
because we know we never had anything to do with 
invasions and insurrections ; and yet this total abstain- 
ing does not exempt us from the charge and the de- 
nunciation. 

61. The question recurs, What will satisfy them? 
Simply this : we must not only let them alone, but we 
must somehow convince them that we do let them 
alone. This, we know by experience is no easy task. 
We have been so trying to convince them from the 
very beginning of our organization, but with no suc- 
cess. In all our platforms and speeches we have con- 



COOPER UNION ADDRESS 147 

stantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but 
this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike un- 
availing to convince them is the fact that they have 
never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb 
them. 

62. These natural and apparently adequate means 
all failing, what will convince them? This, and this 
only : cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in 
calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly 
— done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not 
be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with 
them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be 
enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that 
slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, 
in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return 
their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must 
pull down our free-State constitutions. The whole 
atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposi- 
tion to slavery, before they will cease to believe that 
all their troubles proceed from us. 

63. I am quite aware they do not state their case 
precisely in this way. Most of them would probably 
say to us, "Let us alone; do nothing to us, and say 
what you please about slavery." But we do let them 
alone, — have never disturbed them, — so that, after 
all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will 
continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. 

64. I am also aware they have hot as yet in terms 
demanded the overthrow of our free-State constitu- 
tions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of 



148 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all other 
sayings against it ; and when all these other sayings 
shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these con- 
stitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to 
resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that 
they do not demand the whole of this just now. De- 
manding what they do, and for the reason they do, 
they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this con- 
summation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is mor- 
ally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease 
to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal 
right and a social blessing. 

65. Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any 
ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If 
slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions 
against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced 
and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object 
to its nationality — its universality ; if it is wrong, 
they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its en- 
largement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we 
thought slavery right ; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it 
right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact 
upon which depends the whole controversy. Think- 
ing it right, as they do, they are not to blame for de- 
siring its full recognition as being right ; but thinking 
it wrong as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast 
our votes with their view, and against our own? In 
view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities 
can we do this? 






COOPER UNION ADDRESS 149 

66. Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford 
to let it alone where it is, because that much is due 
to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the 
nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, 
allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to 
overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of 
duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fear- 
lessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of 
those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so 
industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such 
as groping for some middle ground between the right 
and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who 
should be neither a living man nor a dead man ; such 
as a policy of " don't care" on a question about which 
all true men do care; such as Union appeals beseech- 
ing true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing 
the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the 
righteous to repentance ; such as invocations to Wash- 
ington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said 
and undo what Washington did. 

67. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by 
false accusations against us, nor frightened from it 
by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of 
dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right 
makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare 
to do our duty as we understand it. 



POLICIES OF GOVERNMENT 151 

yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope 
in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an 
affectionate farewell. 

POLICIES OF GOVERNMENT 

From Addresses Delivered While on His Way to the . 

White House 

Reply to Address of Welcome 
Indianapolis, Indiana, February 11, 1861 

. . . The people — when they rise in mass in be- 
half of the Union and the liberties of their county, 
truly may it be said, "The gates of hell cannot prevail 
against them." In all trying positions in which 
I shall be placed — and, doubtless, I shall be placed 
in many such — my reliance will be placed upon you 
and the people of the United States ; and I wish you 
to remember, now and forever, that it is your business, 
and not mine ; that if the union of these States arid i the 
liberties of this people shall be lost, it is but littl£ to 
any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal 
to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United 
States, and to their posterity in all coming time.. It is 
your business to rise up and preserve the Union and 
liberty for yourselves, and not for me. 

I desire they should be constitutionally performed. 
I, as already intimated, am but an accidental instru- 
ment, temporary, and to serve for a limited time ; and 
I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that 
with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents, 



152 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

not with office-seekers, but with you is the question, 
Shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country 
be preserved to the latest generations? 

From the Address to the German Club of 

Cincinnati, Ohio 

February 1.2, 1861 

... I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the work- 
ingmen are the basis of all governments, for the plain 
reason that they are all the more numerous, and as 
you added that those were the sentiments of the gentle- 
men present, representing not only the working class, 
but citizens of other callings than those of the mechanic, 
I am happy to concur with you in these sentiments^ 
not only of the native-born citizens, but also of the 
Germans and foreigners from other countries. 

Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists it is 
his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to 
assist in ameliorating the condition of mankind ; and 
therefore, without entering upon the details of the 
question, I will simply say that I am for those means 
which will give the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber. . . . 

In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem 
them no better than other people nor any worse. It 
is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by 
the weight of their shackles — the oppression of tyr- 
anny — to make their life more bitter by heaping 
upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do 



SPEECH IN INDEPENDENCE HALL 153 

all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything 
that would tend to crush them. 

Inasmuch as our own country is extensive and new, 
and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if 
there are any abroad who desire to make this the land 
of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught 
in their way to prevent them from coming to the United 
States. . . . 

From an Address at Pittsburg, Pa. 

February 15, 1861 

(Reported by the New York Tribune) 

... By the Constitution the executive may recom- 
mend measures which he may think proper, and he 
may veto those he thinks improper, and it is supposed 
that he may add to these certain indirect influences 
to affect the action of Congress. My political educa- 
tion strongly inclines me against a very free use of any 
of these means by the executive to control the legisla- 
tion of the country. As a rule, I think it better that 
Congress should originate as well as perfect its measures 
without external bias. . . . 

SPEECH IN INDEPENDENCE HALL 

February 22, 1861 

On Washington's Birthday, 1861, Lincoln assisted in the 
raising of a new flag at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. 
The brief speech which follows has been considered the finest 
of that series of addresses which he delivered on the way to his 
inauguration. In the last sentence there is an obvious reference 



154 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

to the threats of assassination which made advisable a change 
in his itinerary. 

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself 
standing in this place, where were collected together 
the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle 
from which sprang the institutions under which we 
live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my 
hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted 
country. I can say in return, sirs, that all the politi- 
cal sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as 
I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments 
which originated in and were given to the world from 
this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that 
did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the 
Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered 
over the dangers which were incurred by the men who 
assembled here and framed and adopted that Declara- 
tion. I have pondered over the toils that were en- 
dured by the officers and soldiers of the army who 
achieved that independence. I have often inquired of 
myself what great principle or idea it was that kept 
this Confederacy so long together. It was not the 
mere matter of separation of the colonies from the 
motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of 
Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the 
people of this country, but hope to all the world for 
all future time. It was that which gave promise that 
in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoul- 
ders of all men and that all should have an equal 
chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Dec- 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 155 

laration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this 
country be saved on that basis? If it can, I will con- 
sider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I 
can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that 
principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country 
cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I 
was about to say I would rather be assassinated on 
this spot than surrender it, Now, in my view of the 
present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed 
and war. There is no necessity for it, I am not in 
favor of such a course; and I may say in advance 
that there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced 
upon the Government. The Government will not use 
force, unless force is used against it, 

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. 
I did not expect to be called on to say a word when I 
came here. I supposed it was merely to do something 
towards raising a flag — I may, therefore, have said 
something indiscreet. [Cries of "No, No."] But I 
have said nothing but what I am willing to live by 
and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by. 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS" 

* March 4, 1861 

The following address, delivered on March 4, 1861, had been 
written before Lincoln came to Washington and had been revised 
in accordance with the advice of Win. H. Seward and other 
prominent leaders of the Republican Party. It represents 
Lincoln's last solemn attempt to reunite the nation before the 
outbreak of war, and it states clearly his attitude toward the 
issue of Union vs. Secession. Less than two months later, Fort 



156 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Sumter fell, on April 13. If the speeches delivered on the way 
to Washington had seemed reserved and indecisive, this address 
made it plain that Lincoln would defend the Union at any cost. 

1. Fellow-citizens of the United States: In com- 
pliance with a custom as old as the Government it- 
self, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to 
take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Con- 
stitution of the United States to be taken by the Presi- 
dent " before he enters on the execution of his office." 

2. I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

3. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of 
the Southern States that by the accession of a Repub- 
lican administration their property and their peace 
and personal security are to be endangered. There 
has never been any reasonable cause for such appre- 
hension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the con- 
trary has all the while existed and been open to their 
inspection. It is found in nearly all the published 
speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but 
quote from one of those speeches when I declare that 
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere 
with the institution of slavery in the States whe?e it 
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I 
have no inclination to do so." Those who nominated 
and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had 
made this and many similar declarations, and had 
never recanted them. And, more than this, they 
placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 157 

law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic 
resolution which I now read : 

" Resolved, that the maintenance inviolate of the 
rights of the States, and especially the right of each 
State to order and control its own domestic institu- 
tions according to its own judgment exclusively, is es- 
sential to that balance of power on which the perfec- 
tion and endurance of our political fabric depend, and 
we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of 
the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under 
what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes." 

4. I now reiterate these sentiments ; and, in doing 
so, I only press upon the public attention the most con- 
clusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that 
the property, peace, and security of no section are to 
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Ad- 
ministration. I add, too, that all the protection which, 
consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can 
be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States 
when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as 
cheerfully to one section, as to another. 

5. There is much controversy about the delivering up 
of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now 
read is as plainly written m the Constitution 1 as any 
other of its provisions : 

"No person held to service or labor in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in 
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- 
charged from such service or labor, but shall be deliv- 

i Article IV, Section 2, Part 3. 



158 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

ered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
labor may be due." 

6. It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of 
what we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the 
lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear 
their support to the whole Constitution — to this pro- 
vision as much as to any other. To the proposition, 
then, that slaves, whose cases come within the terms 
of this clause, " shall be delivered up" their oaths are 
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in 
good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanim- 
ity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep 
good that unanimous oath? 

7. There is some difference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by State 
authority; but surely that difference is not a very 
material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can 
be of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which 
authority it is done. And should any one, in any case, 
be content that his oath shall go unkept, on a merely 
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? 

8. Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all 
the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and hu- 
mane jurisprudence to be introduced so that a free 
man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And 
might it not be well at the same time to provide by 
law for the enforcement of that clause in the Consti- 
tution 1 which guarantees that "the citizen of each 

1 Article IV, Section 2, Part 1. 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 150 

State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several States"? 

9. I take the official oath to-day with no mental reser- 
vations and with no purpose to construe the Constitu- 
tion or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I 
do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- 
gress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it 
will be much safer for all, both in official and private 
stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts 
which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them 
trusting to find impunity in having them held to be 
unconstitutional. 

10. It is seventy-two years since the first inaugura- 
tion of a President under our National Constitution. 
During that period fifteen different and greatly distin- 
guished citizens have, in succession, administered the 
Executive branch of the Government. They have 
conducted it through many perils, and generally with 
great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, 
I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitu- 
tional term of four years, under great and peculiar 
difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, hereto- 
fore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. 

11. I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, 
and of the Constitution, the union of these States is per- 
petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the 
fundamental law of all national governments. It is 
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a 
provision in its organic law for its own termination. 
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our 



100 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

National Constitution, and the Union will endure for- 
ever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some 
action not provided for in the instrument itself. 

12. Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in the nature of 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably un- 
made by less than all the parties who made it? One 
party to a contract ma}' violate it — break it, so to 
speak, but does it not require all to lawfully rescind 
it? 

13. Descending from these general principles, we 
find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the 
Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the 
Union itself. The Union is much older than the Con- 
stitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of 
Association in 1774. It was matured and continued 
by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was 
further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen 
States expressly plighted and engaged that it should 
be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. 
And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for 
ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to 
form a more perfect Union." 

14. But if destruction of the Union by one, or by a 
part only, of the States be lawfully possible, the Union 
is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost 
the vital element of perpetuity. 

15. It follows from these views, that no State, upon 
its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union ; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 161 

void ; and that acts of violence, within any State or 
States, against the authority of the United States, are 
insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circum- 
stances. 

16. I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken ; and to the 
extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitu- 
tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of 
the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. 
Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my 
part ; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, un- 
less my rightful masters, the American people, shall 
withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative 
manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be 
regarded as a menace, but only as the declared pur- 
pose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend 
and maintain itself. 

17. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or 
violence ; and there shall be none, unless it be forced 
upon the national authority. The power confided to 
me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the prop- 
erty and places belonging to the Government, and to 
collect the duties and imposts ; but beyond what may 
be necessary for these objects, there will be no inva- 
sion, no using of force against or among the people 
anywhere. Where hostility to the United States, in 
any interior locality, shall be so great and universal 
as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding 
the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force 
obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. 



162 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

While the strict legal right may exist in the Govern- 
ment to enforce the exercise of these offices, the at- 
tempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly 
impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego 
for the time the uses of such offices. 

18. The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 
nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, 
the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect 
security which is most favorable to calm thought and 
reflection. The course here indicated will be followed 
unless current events and experience shall show a mod- 
ification or change to be proper, and in every case and 
exigency my best direction will be exercised accord- 
ing to circumstances actually existing, and with a view 
and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, 
and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affec- 
tions. 

19. That there are persons in one section or another 
who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are 
glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor 
deny ; but if there be such, I need address no word to 
them. To those, however, who really love the Union, 
may I not speak? 

20. Before entering upon so grave a matter as the 
destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, 
its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to as- 
certain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so 
desperate a step while there is any possibility that any 
portion of the ills you fly from have no real exist- 
ence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 163 

greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you 
risk the commission of so fearful a mistake ? 

21. All profess to be content in the Union, if all 
constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, 
that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, 
has been denied? I think not. Happily the human 
mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the 
audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single 
instance in which a plainly written provision of the 
Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere 
force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minor- 
ity of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, 
in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly 
would, if such right were a vital one. But such is not 
our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of in- 
dividuals are so plainly assured to them by affirma- 
tions and negations, guarantees and prohibitions, in the 
Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning 
them. But no organic law can ever be framed with 
a provision specifically applicable to every question 
which may occur in practical administration. No fore- 
sight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable 
length contain, express provisions for all possible 
questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered 
by national or by State authority ? l The Constitution 
does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slav- 
ery in the Territories ? 2 The Constitution does not ex- 

1 The personal liberty laws and other antislavery legislation opera- 
tive in some Northern States prevented surrender by State authori- 
ties. 

2 Denied by prominent leaders in the South. 



164 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

pressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the 
Territories ? l The Constitution does not expressly say. 

22. From questions of this class spring all our consti- 
tutional controversies, and we divide upon them into 
majorities and minorities. If the minority will not 
acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must 
cease. There is no other alternative ; for continuing 
the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. 
If a minority in such case will secede rather than ac- 
quiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will di- 
vide and ruin them ; for a minority of their own will 
secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be 
controlled by such minority. For instance, why may 
not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two 
hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of 
the present Union now claim to secede from it? All 
who cherish disunion sentiments are now being edu- 
cated to the exact temper of doing this. 

23. Is there such perfect identity of interests among 
the States to compose a new Union as to produce har- 
mony only, and prevent renewed secession? 

24. Plainty, the central idea of secession is the es- 
sence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by 
constitutional checks and limitations, and always 
changing easily with deliberate changes of popular 
opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a 
free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly 
to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible ; 
the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is 

1 Southern leaders like Davis and Yancey had made this demand. 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 165 

wholly inadmissible ; so that, rejecting the majority prin- 
ciple, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. 
25. I do not forget the position, assumed by some, 
that constitutional questions are to be decided by the 
Supreme Court ; x nor do I deny that such decisions 
must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, 
as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled 
to very high respect and consideration in all parallel 
cases by all other departments of the Government. 
And while it is obviously possible that such decision 
may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect 
following it, being limited to that particular case, with 
the chance that it may be overruled, and never be- 
come a precedent for other cases, can better be borne 
than could the evils of a different practice. At the 
same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the 
policy of the Government, upon vital questions affect- 
ing the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by de- 
cisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are 
made in ordinary litigation between parties in per- 
sonal actions, the people will have ceased to be their 
own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned 
their government into the hands of that eminent tribu- 
nal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the 
court or the judges, It is a duty from which they 
may not shrink to decide cases properly brought be- 
fore them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to 
turn their decisions to political purposes. 

1 A reference to the Dred Scott case. Lincoln here opposes ju- 
dicial usurpation. 



166 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

26. One section of our country believes slavery is 
right, and ought to be extended, while the other be- 
lieves it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This 
is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave 
clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppres- 
sion of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, 
perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where 
the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the 
law itself. The great body of the people abide by the 
dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over 
in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured ; 
and it would be worse in both cases after the separation 
of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, 
now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately re- 
vived without restriction in one section ; while fugitive 
slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be 
surrendered at all by the other. 

27. Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We 
cannot remove our respective sections from each other, 
nor build an impassable wall between them. A hus- 
band and wife may be divorced, and go out of the 
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the 
different parts of our country cannot do this. They 
cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either 
amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is 
it possible, then, to make that intercourse more ad- 
vantageous or more satisfactory after separation than 
before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends 
can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully en- 
forced between aliens than laws can among friends? 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 167 

Suppose you go to Avar, you cannot fight always ; 
and when, after much loss on both sides, and no 
gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old 
questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon 
you. 

28. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow 
weary of the existing Government they can exercise 
their constitutional right of amending it, or their rev- 
olutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I 
cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and 
patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National 
Constitution amended. While I make no recommenda- 
tion of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful au- 
thority of the people over the whole subject, to be 
exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instru- 
ment itself ; and I should, under existing circumstances, 
favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being 
afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to 
add, that to me the convention mode seems preferable, 
in that it allows amendments to originate with the 
people themselves, instead of only permitting them to 
take or reject propositions originated by others, not 
especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not 
be precisely such as they would wish to either accept 
or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to 
the Constitution — which amendment, however, I have 
not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the 
Federal Government shall never interfere with the do- 
mestic institutions of the States, including that of per- 



1G8 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

sons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of 
what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to 
speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, 
holding such a provision to now be implied constitu- 
tional law, I have no objections to its being made ex- 
press and irrevocable. 

29. The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority 
from the people, and they have conferred none upon 
him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The 
people themselves can do this also if they choose ; but 
the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His 
duty is to administer the present Government, as it 
came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by 
him, to his successor. 

30. Why should there not be a patient confidence in 
the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better 
or equal hope in the world ? In our present differences 
is either party without faith of being in the right? If 
the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth 
and justice, be on your side of the North, or on j^ours 
of the South, that truth and that justice will surely 
prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the 
American people. 

31. By the frame of the Government under which we 
live, this same people have wisely given their public 
servants but little power for mischief ; and have, with 
equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to 
their own hands at very short intervals. While the 
people retain their virtue and vigilance, no adminis- 
tration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 169 

very seriously injure the Government in the short 
space of four years. 

32. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and 
well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be 
lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry 
any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would 
never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated 
by taking time ; but no good object can be frustrated 
by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have 
the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive 
point, the laws of your own framing under it ; while 
the new Administration will have no immediate power, 
if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that 
you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dis- 
pute, there still is no single good reason for precipi- 
tate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and 
a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken 
this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the 
best way, all our present difficulty. 

33. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow country- 
men, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil 
war. The Government will not assail you. You can have 
no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. 
You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the 
government, while I shall have the most solemn one 
to " preserve, protect, and defend it." l 

1 The original draft, after the words "preserve, protect, and de- 
fend it," concluded as follows, addressing itself to "my dissatisfied 
fellow countrymen" : "You can forbear the assault upon it, I cannot 
shrink from the defense of it. With you, and not with me, is the sol- 
emn question of ' Shall it be peace or a sword?'" 



170 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

34. I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of af- 
fection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every liv- 
ing heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of 
our nature. 1 

THE PEOPLE'S CONTEST 

From a Message to Congress, July 4, 1861 

. . . And this issue embraces more than the fate 
of these United States. It presents to the whole family 
of man the question whether a constitutional republic 
or democracy — a government of the people by the 
same people — can or cannot maintain its territorial 
integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents 
the question whether discontented individuals, too 
few in numbers to control administration according to 
organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretences 
made in this case or any other pretences, or arbitrarily 

1 Seward submitted two separate drafts for a closing paragraph 
The second of these ran as follows ; — 

"I close. We are not, w r e must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow 
countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds 
of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be 
broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battle- 
fields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all 
hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonize in 
their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of 
the nation." 



THE PEOPLE'S CONTEST 171 

without any pretence, break up their government, and 
thus practically put an end to free government upon 
the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there, in all re- 
publics, this inherent and fatal weakness?" "Must ' 
a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liber- 
ties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own 
existence?" 

. . . This is essentially a people's contest. On the 
side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in 
the world that form and substance of government 
whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men, 
— to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear 
the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an 
unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. 
Yielding to partial and temporary departures from 
necessity, this is the leading object of the government 
for the existence of which we contend. 

I am most happy to believe that the plain people 
understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note 
that while in this, the government's hour of trial, large 
numbers of those in the army and navy who have been 
favored with the offices have resigned and proved 
false to the hand which had pampered them, not one 
common soldier or common sailor is known to have 
deserted his flag. 

Our popular government has often been called an 
experiment. Two points in it our people have already 
settled, — the successful establishing and the successful 
administering of it. One still remains, — its successful 
maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to 



172 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to 
the world that those who can fairly carry an election 
can also suppress a rebellion ; that ballots are the right- 
ful and peaceful successors of bullets ; and that when 
ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there 
can be no successful appeal back to bullets ; that there 
can be no successful appeal, except to ballots them- 
selves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great 
lesson of peace ; teaching men that what they cannot 
take by an election, neither can they take by a war; 
teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war. 



LABOR AND CAPITAL 

From the Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861 

... It is not needed nor fitting here that a general 
argument should be made in favor of popular institu- 
tions; but there is one point, with its connections, 
not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a 
brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an 
equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the struc- 
ture of government. It is assumed that labor is 
available only in connection with capital ; that no- 
body labors, unless somebody else, owning capital, 
somehow, by the use of it, induces him to labor. This 
assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that 
capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to 
work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them 
to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus 



LABOR AND CAPITAL 173 

far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either 
hired laborers, or what we call slaves. And further, 
it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is 
fixed in that condition for life. 

Now, there is no such relation between capital and 
labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a 
free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired 
laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all 
inferences from them are groundless. 

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capi- 
tal is only the fruit of labor, and could never have 
existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the 
superior of capital, and deserves much the higher con- 
sideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy 
of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied 
that there is, and probably always will be, a relation 
between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits. 
The error is in assuming that the whole labor of 
the community exists within that relation. A few men 
own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and 
with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for 
thenio A large majority belong to neither class, — 
neither work for others, nor have others working for 
them. In most of the Southern States, a majority of 
the whole people, of all colors, are neither slaves nor 
masters ; while in the Northern, a majority are neither 
hirers nor hired. Men with their families — wives, 
sons, and daughters — work for themselves, on their 
farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the 
whole product to themselves, and asking no favors 



174 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

of capital on the one hand, nor of hired laborers or 
slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a consider- 
able number of persons mingle their own labor with 
capital — that is, they labor with their own hands, 
and also buy or hire others to labor for them ; but 
this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No 
principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this 
mixed class. 

Again, as has aheady been said, there is not of ne- 
cessity any such thing as the free, hired laborer being 
fixed to that condition for life. Many independent 
men, everywhere in these States, a few years back in 
their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penni- 
less beginner in the world labors for wages a while, 
saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for 
himself, then labors on his own account another while, 
and at length hires another new beginner to help him. 
This is the just and generous and prosperous system 
which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and con- 
sequent energy and progress and improvement of 
condition to all. No men living are more worthy to 
be trusted than those who toil up from poverty, none 
less inclined to take or touch aught which they have 
not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering 
a political power which they already possess, and which, 
if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of 
advancement against such as they, and to fix new dis- 
abilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall 
be lost. 



LETTER TO GENERAL McCLELLAN 175 

LETTER TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN 

Executive Mansion, Washington. February 3, 1862 

My dear Sir, You and I have distinct and different 
plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac — 
yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock 
to Urbana and across land to the terminus of the rail- 
road on the York River ; mine to move directly to a 
point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. 

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the follow- 
ing questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours. 

First. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger 
expenditure of time and money than mine ? 

Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your 
plan than mine? 

Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your 
plan than mine? 

Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, 
that it would break no great line of the enemy's com- 
munications, while mine would? 

Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be 
more difficult by your plan than mine? 

Yours truly, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING 
COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 

March 6, 1862 

Notwithstanding Lincoln's personal opposition to slavery on 
moral grounds, he desired just protection for slaveholders. 
Hence, he always argued before the war that guaranties of the 



176 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Constitution regarding slavery should l>c respected, and slaves 
made free only by gradual processes. The Proclamation for 
Compensated Emancipation was not primarily such a gradual 
process, however, but a practical war measure intended to win 
the border States for the Union. It afforded them a chance to 
maintain their allegiance without losing the money they had 
invested in slaves. 

The history of Lincoln's attitude toward slavery after he 
became President is best traced in his own letters and addresses. 
See in this volume, in addition to the present selection : Letter 
to Greeley, Aug. 22, 1862; Reply to a Committee, Sept, 13, 
1862; Emancipation Proclamation, Jan. 1, 1863; Letter to 
Conkling, Aug. 26, 1863 ; Letter to Drake, Oct. 5, 1863 ; Letter 
to Hodges, Apr. 4, 1864 ; Letter to Mrs. Horace Mann, Apr. 5, 
1864; Last Public Address, Apr. 11, 1865. 

For a brief history of bills intended to secure compensated 
emancipation, see Macdonald : Documentary Source Book of 
American History, p. 449. 

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Represen- 
tati ves : 

I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by 
your honorable bodies, which shall be substantially as 
follows : 

Resolved : That the United States ought to cooperate 
with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment 
of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be 
used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate 
for the inconveniences, public and private, produced 
by such change of system. 

If the proposition contained in the resolution does 
not meet the approval of Congress and the country, 
there is an end ; but if it does command such approval, 
I deem it of importance that the States and people 
immediately interested should be at once distinctly 



COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 177 

notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider 
whether to accept or reject it. The Federal Govern- 
ment would find its highest interest in such a measure, 
as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. 
The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the 
hope that this government will ultimately be forced 
to acknowledge the independence of some part of the 
disaffected region, and that all the slave States north 
of such part will then say> "The Union for which we 
have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go 
with the Southern section." To deprive them of this 
hope substantially ends the rebellion ; and the initia- 
tion of emancipation completely deprives them of it 
as to all the States initiating it. The point is not that 
all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at 
all, initiate emancipation ; but that while the offer is 
equally made to all, the more Northern shall, by such 
initiation, make it certain to the more Southern that 
in no event will the former ever join the latter in their 
proposed confederacy. I say "initiation" because, 
in my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation 
is better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary 
view, any member of Congress, with the census tables 
and the treasury reports before him, can readily see 
for himself how very soon the current expenditures 
of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the 
slaves in any named State. Such a proposition on 
the part of the General Government sets up no claim 
of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery 
within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute 



178 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

control of the subject in each case to the State and its 
people immediately interested. It is proposed as a 
matter of perfectly free choice with them. 

In the annual message, last December, I thought fit 
to say, "The Union must be preserved, and hence all 
indispensable means must be employed." I said this 
not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made, 
and continues to be, an indispensable means to this 
end. A practical reacknowledgment of the national 
authority would render the war unnecessary, and it 
would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, 
the war must also continue; and it is impossible to 
foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the 
ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem indis- 
pensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency, 
toward ending the struggle, must and will come. 

The proposition now made, though an offer only, 
I hope it may be esteemed no offence to ask whether 
the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of 
more value to the States and private persons concerned 
than are the institution and property in it, in the 
present aspect of affairs? 

While it is true that the adoption of the proposed 

resolution would be merely initiatory, and not within 

itself a practical measure, it is recommended in the 

hope that it would soon lead to important practical 

results. In full view of my great responsibility to my 

God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention 

of Congress and the people to the subject. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
Washington, March 6, 1862. 



LETTER TO GENERAL McCLELLAN 179 

LETTER TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN 

Fort Monroe, Virginia 

May 9, 1862 
Major-General McClellan, 

My dear Sir : — 

I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing 
part of a despatch to you, relating to army corps, which 
despatch of course will have reached you long before 
this will. 

I wish to say a few words to you privately on this 
subject. I ordered the army corps organization, not 
only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals 
whom you had selected and assigned as generals of 
division, but also on the unanimous opinion of every 
military man I could get an opinion from (and every 
modern military book), yourself only excepted. Of 
course I did not on my own judgment pretend to under- 
stand the subject. I now think it indispensable for 
you to know how your struggle against it is received 
in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It is 
looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one or two 
pets and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. 
I have no word from Sumner, Heintzelman, or Keyes. 
The commanders of these corps are of course the three 
highest officers with you, but I am constantly told that 
you have no consultation or communication with them, 
- that you consult and communicate with nobody but 
General Fitz John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin. 
I do not say these complaints are true or just, but at 



180 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

all events it is proper you should know of their exist- 
ence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your 
orders in anything? 

When you relieved General Hamilton of his command 
the other day, you thereby lost the confidence of at 
least one of your best friends in the Senate. And here 
let me say, not as applicable to you personally, that 
Senators and Representatives speak of me in their 
places without question, and that officers of the army 
must cease addressing insulting letters to them for 
taking no greater liberty with them. 

But to return. Are you strong enough — are you 
strong enough even with my help — to set your foot 
upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes, 
all at once ? This is a practical and very serious ques- 
tion to you. 

The success of your army and the cause of the country 

are the same, and, of course, I only desire the good of 

the cause. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

LINCOLN AND RED TAPE 

Telegram to Governor Andrew 

War Department, Washington City, D. C. 

August 12, 1862 
Governor Andrew, Boston, Mass. : 

Your despatch saying "I can't get those regiments 
off because I can't get quick work out of the U. S. dis- 
bursing officer and the paymaster" is received. Please 



LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 181 

say to these gentlemen that if they do not work quickly 
I will make quick work with them. In the name of all 
that is reasonable, how long does it take to pay a couple 
of regiments? We were never more in need of the 
arrival of regiments than now — even to-day. 

A. Lincoln 

LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 

Horace Greeley (1811-1872) founded the New York Tribune 
in 1841, after a varied life of poverty ; became an eminent figure 
by the ability of his editorial work, and exerted a strong influence 
throughout the country, but especially in the rural communities. 
In 1848-9 he was a member of Congress ; in 1860 he was a delegate 
to the National Republican Convention which nominated Lincoln. 

Greeley was at first opposed to declaring war upon the seceding 
States, but when it was declared stood by the government. He 
remained, however, an outspoken and troublesome critic. In 
August, 1862, in a letter entitled "The Prayer of Twenty 
Millions" which he addressed to Lincoln through the columns 
of the Tribune, Greeley urged the emancipation of the negroes, 
and indulged in sharp criticism of the President. The present 
letter is Lincoln's reply to that article. 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

August 22, 1862 
Hon. Horace Greeley. — Dear Sir : I have just read 
yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the 
New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements 
or assumptions of fact which I may know to be 
erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If 
there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be 
falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against 
them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and 



182 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, 
whose heart I have always supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing/' as you 
sav, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it in the 
shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the 
National authority can be restored, the nearer the 
Union will be "The Union as it was." If there be 
those who would not save the Union unless they could 
at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with 
them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save 
the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery. 
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I 
would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing 
some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do 
because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and 
what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it 
would help to save the Union. I shall do less, when- 
ever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause ; 
and I shall do more, whenever I shall believe doing 
more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors 
when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views 
so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have 
here stated my purpose according to my view of official 
duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed 
personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. 

Yours, 
A. Lincoln. 



REPLY TO A COMMITTEE 183 

REPLY TO A COMMITTEE FROM THE RE- 
LIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS OF CHICAGO, 
URGING LINCOLN TO ISSUE A PROCLA- 
MATION OF EMANCIPATION 

September 13, 1862 

The subject presented in the memorial is one upon 
which I have thought much for weeks past, and I may 
even say for months. I am approached with the most 
opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious 
men who are equally certain that they represent the 
divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other 
class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some 
respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me 
to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His 
will to others on a point so connected with my duty, 
it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to 
me ; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I 
often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of 
Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what 
it is, I will do it. These are not, however, the days 
of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I 
am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study 
the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is 
possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. 

The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. 
For instance, the other day four gentlemen of standing 
and intelligence from New York called as a delegation 
on business connected with the war ; but, before 
leaving, two of them earnestly beset me to proclaim 



184 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

general emancipation, upon which the other two at 
once attacked them. You know also that the last 
session of Congress had a decided majority of anti- 
slavery men, yet they could not unite on this policy. 
And the same is true of the religious people. Why, 
the rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more 
earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expect- 
ing God to favor their side ; for one of our soldiers who 
had been taken prisoner told Senator Wilson a few days 
since that he met with nothing so discouraging as the 
evident sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. 
But we will talk over the merits of the case. 

What good would a proclamation of emancipation 
from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do 
not want to issue a document that the whole world 
will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's 
bull against the comet. Would my word free the 
slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution 
in the rebel States? Is there a single court, or magis- 
trate, or individual that would be influenced by it 
there? And what reason is there to think it would 
have any greater effect upon the slaves than the late 
law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers 
protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters 
who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that 
that law has caused a single slave to come over to us. 
And suppose they could be induced by a proclamation 
of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what 
should we do with them? How can we feed and 
care for such a multitude? General Butler wrote me 



REPLY TO A COMMITTEE 185 

a few days since that he was issuing more rations to 
the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the 
white troops under his command. They eat, and that 
is all; though it is true General Butler is feeding the 
whites also by the thousand, for it nearly amounts to 
a famine there. If, now, the pressure of the war 
should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend 
some other point, what is to prevent the masters from 
reducing the blacks to slavery again? For I am told 
that whenever the rebels take any black prisoners, 
free or slave, they immediately auction them off. 
They did so with those they took from a boat that 
was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. 
And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it ! 
For instance, when, after the late battles at and near 
Bull Run, an expedition went out from Washington 
under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring in 
the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who 
went along to help, and sent them into slavery, Horace 
Greeley said in his paper that the government would 
probably do nothing about it. What could I do? 

Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible 
result of good would follow the issuing of such a proc- 
lamation as you desire? Understand, I raise no ob- 
jections against it on legal or constitutional grounds ; 
for, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in 
time of war I suppose I have a right to take any meas- 
ure which may best subdue the enemy; nor do I 
urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible 
consequences of insurrection and massacre at the 



18G LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

South. I view this matter as a practical war measure, 

to be decided on according to the advantages or dis- 
advantages it may offer to the suppression of the 
rebellion. 

I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, or 
at least its sine qua non. The ambition of politicians 
may have instigated them to act, but they would have 
been impotent without slavery as their instrument. 
I will also concede that emancipation would help us 
in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by 
something more than ambition. I grant, further, that 
it would help somewhat at the North, though not so 
much, I fear, as you and those you represent imagine. 
Still, some additional strength would be added in that 
way to the war, and then, unquestionably, it would 
weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, which 
is of great importance ; but I am not so sure we could 
do much with the blacks. If we were to arm them, 
I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the 
hands of the rebels ; and, indeed, thus far we have 
not had arms enough to equip our white troops. I 
will mention another thing, though it meet only your 
scorn and contempt. There are fifty thousand bayo- 
nets in the Union armies from the border slave States. 
It would be a serious matter if, in consequence of a 
proclamation such as you desire, they should go over 
to the rebels. I do not think the}- all would — not so 
many, indeed, as a year ago, or as six months ago — 
not so many to-day as yesterday. Every day increases 
their Union feeling. They are also getting their pride 



LETTER TO CARL SCIIURZ 187 

enUsted, and want to beat the rebels. Let me say one 
thing more : I think you should admit that we already 
have an important principle to rally and unite the 
people, in the fact that constitutional government is 
at stake. This is a fundamental idea going down 
about as deep as anything. 

Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned 
these objections. They indicate the difficulties that 
have thus far prevented my action in some such way 
as you desire. I have not decided against a proclama- 
tion of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under 
advisement ; and I can assure you that the subject is 
on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. 
Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. 
I trust that in the freedom with which I have can- 
vassed your views I have not in any respect injured 
your feelings. 

LETTER TO CARL SCHURZ 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

November 24, 1862 
General Carl Schurz, 

My dear Sir: I have just received and read your 
letter of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost 
the late elections and the Administration is failing be- 
cause the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not 
natter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I 
certainly know that if the war fails, the Administra- 
tion fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I 
deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could 



188 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

do better. You think I could do better; therefore 
you blame me already. I think I could not do better 
therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand 
you now to be willing to accept the help of men who 
are not Republicans, provided they have " heart in 
it." Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be 
the judge of hearts, or of " heart in it"? If I must 
discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also 
take that of others ; and by the time I should reject 
all I should be advised to reject, I should have none 
left, Republicans or others — not even yourself. For 
be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have 
"heart in it" that think you are performing your part 
as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I cer- 
tainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell 
and McClellan ; but before I relieved them I had great 
fears I should not find successors to them who would 
do better ; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little 
since to relieve those fears. 

I do not clearly see the prospect of any more rapid 
movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the 
difficulty is in our case rather than in particular gen- 
erals. I wish to disparage no one — certainly not those 
who sympathize with me, but I must say I need success 
more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen 
the so much greater evidence of getting success from 
my sympathizers than from those who are denounced 
as the contrary. It does seem to me that in the field 
the two classes have been very much alike in what they 
have done and what they have failed to do. In sealing 



EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 189 

their faith with their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohlen 
and Richardson, Republicans, did all that men could do ; 
but did they any more than Kearny and Stevens and 
Reno and Mansfield, none of whom were Republicans, 
and some at least of whom have been bitterly and re- 
peatedly denounced to me as secession sympathizers? 
I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing 
cases of failure. 

In answer to your question, "Has it not been publicly 
stated in the newspapers, and apparently proved as a 
fact, that from the commencement of the war the enemy 
was continually supplied with information by some 
of the confidential subordinates of as important an 
officer as Adjutant-General Thomas?" I must say 
'No," as far as my knowledge extends. And I add 
that if you can give any tangible evidence upon the 
subject, I will thank you to come to this city and do so. 

Very truly your friend, 
A. Lincoln. 

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 

January 1, 1863 

Lincoln read a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to the 
Cabinet July 22, 1882. Seward suggested that action be de- 
ferred until the army won an important victory, and Lincoln 
accepted the advice. On September 22, after the battle of 
Antietam, he announced that he proposed on the following New 
Year's Day to emancipate the slaves. Accordingly, the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation was issued January 1, 1863. 

It is interesting to note (1) that Lincoln's letter to Greeley 
(Aug. 22) was written after the preliminary proclamation was 
drafted, (2) that the proclamation did not abolish slavery, but 



190 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

only set free certain slaves, and (3) that these were the slaves 
held in the rebellious States, loyal slave States and conquered 
sections of rebel States being exempted. Like the Proclamation 
of Compensated Emancipation of March, 1862, this was a war 
measure rather than an abolition measure. See p. 176 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, containing, among other 
things, the following, to wit : — 

"That on the first day of January, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, 
all persons held as slaves within any State, or desig- 
nated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be 
in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, 
thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive 
Government of the United States, including the mil- 
itary and naval authority thereof, will recognize and 
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do 
no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of 
them, in any efforts they may make for their actual 
freedom. 

"That the Executive will, on the first day of Janu- 
ary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States 
and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof 
respectively shall then be in rebellion against the 
United States ; and the fact that any State, or the peo- 
ple thereof, shall on that day be in good faith repre- 
sented in the Congress of the United States by mem- 
bers chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of 
the qualified voters of such State shall have partici- 



EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 191 

pated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing 
testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such 
State and the people -thereof are not then in rebellion 
against the United States; " — 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested 
as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against 
the authority of, and government of the United States, 
and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing 
said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so 
to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one 
hundred days from the day first above-mentioned, 
order, and designate, as the States and parts of States 
wherein the people thereof respectively are this day 
in rebellion against the United States, the following, 
to wit : Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana except the parishes 
of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. 
Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the city of New Orleans, Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, 
and Virginia, except the forty-eight counties designated 
as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Ac- 
comac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess 
Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and 
Portsmouth, and which excepted parts are, for the pres- 
ent, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. 



192 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held 
as slaves within said designated States and parts of 
States are, and henceforward shall be free; and that 
the Executive Government of the United States, in- 
cluding the military and naval authorities thereof, will 
recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to 
be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in neces- 
sary self-defense, and I recommend to them, that in 
all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for rea- 
sonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such 
persons of suitable condition 1 will be received into the 
armed service of the United States to garrison forts, 
positions, stations, and other places, and to man ves- 
sels of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act 
of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon mil- 
itary necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. 

In Testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name 
and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this first day of 
January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of 
the United States of America the eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President : 
William H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER 193 

LETTER TO GENERAL J. HOOKER 

Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. 

January 26, 1862 
Major-General Hooker, 
General : 

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the 
Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what ap- 
pear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it 
best for you to know that there are some things in re- 
gard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I 
believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which of 
course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics 
with your profession, in which you are right. You 
have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not 
an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, 
within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm ; 
but I think that during General Burnside's command 
of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition 
and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you 
did a great wrong to the country and to a most 
meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have 
heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently 
saying that both the army and the government needed 
a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of 
it, that I have given you the command. Only those 
generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What 
I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the 
dictatorship. The government will support you to the 
utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than 



194 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear 
that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the 
army, of criticizing their commander and withholding; 
confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 
assist 3^ou as far as I can to put it down. Neither you 
nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good 
out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it ; and 
now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with 
energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us 
victories. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

LETTER TO GENERAL U. S. GRANT 

July 13, 1863 

My dear General, I do not remember that you and I 
have ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful 
acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you 
have done the country. I wish to say a word further. 
When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I 
thought you should do what you finally did — march the 
troops across the neck, run the batteries with the trans- 
ports, and thus go below ; and I never had any faith, 
except a general hope that you knew better than I, that 
the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. 
When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, 
and vicinity, I though! you should go down the river 
and join General Banks, and when you turned north- 
ward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. 



LETTER TO JAMES II. HACKETT 195 

I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that 
you were right and I was wrong. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

LETTER TO JAMES H. HACKETT 

Washington, August 17, 1863 

My dear Sir, Months ago I should have acknowledged 
the receipt of your book and accompanying kind note ; 
and I now have to beg your pardon for not having done so. 

For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. 
The first presentation of Falstaff I ever saw was yours 
here, last winter or spring. Perhaps the best compli- 
ment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anx- 
ious to see it again. Some of Shakespeare's plays I 
have never read ; while others I have gone over per- 
haps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. 
Among the latter are Lear, Richard III., Henry VIII., 
Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing 
equals Macbeth. It is wonderful. 

Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the 
soliloquy in Hamlet commencing "Oh, my offence is 
rank," surpasses that commencing "To be or not to be." 
But pardon this small attempt at criticism. I should 
like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Rich- 
ard III. Will you not soon visit Washington again? 
If you do, please call and let me make your personal 

acquaintance. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



196 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

LETTER TO JAMES C. CONKLING 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

August 26, 1863 

My dear Sir, — Your letter inviting me to attend 
a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held 
at the capital of Illinois on the 3d day of September, 
has been received. It would be very agreeable to me 
thus to meet my old friends at my own home; but I 
cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a 
visit there would require. 

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain un- 
conditional devotion to the Union ; and I am sure that 
my old political friends will thank me for tendering, 
as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble 
men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can 
make false to the nation's life. There are those who 
are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say : You 
desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have 
it. But how can we attain it? There are but three 
conceivable ways : First, to suppress the rebellion by 
force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for 
it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not 
for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am 
against this. If you are, you should say so, plainly. 
If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there 
only remains some imaginable compromise. 

I do not believe that any compromise embracing 
the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All 
that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The 



LETTER TO JAMES C. CONKLING 197 

strength of the rebellion is its military — its army. 
That army dominates all the country and all the peo- 
ple within its range. Any offer of any terms made 
by any man or men within that range in opposition to 
that army, is simply nothing for the present, because 
such man or men have no power whatever to enforce 
their side of a compromise, if one were made with 
them. To illustrate : Suppose refugees from the 
South and peace men of the North get together in con- 
vention, and frame and proclaim a compromise em- 
bracing the restoration of the Union. In what way 
can that compromise be used to keep Gen. Lee's army 
out of Pennsylvania? Gen. Meade's army can keep 
Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and I think can ulti- 
mately drive it out of existence. But no paper com- 
promise to which the controllers of Gen. Lee's army 
are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an ef- 
fort at such compromise we would waste time, which 
the enemy would improve to our disadvantage, and 
that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, 
must be made either with those who control the Rebel 
army, or with the people, first liberated from the domi- 
nation of that army by the success of our army. Now, 
allow me to assure you that no word or intimation 
from the Rebel army, or from any of the men control- 
ling it, in relation to any peace compromises, has ever 
come to my knowledge or belief. All charges and in- 
timations to the contrary are deceptive and ground- 
less. And I promise you that if any such proposition 
shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept 



198 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

secret from you. 1 freely acknowledge myself to be 
the servant of the people, according to the bond of 
service, the United States Constitution ; and that, as 
such, I am responsible to them. 

But, to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me 
about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of 
opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I 
certainly wish that all men could be free, while you, I 
suppose, do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor pro- 
posed any measure which is not consistent with even 
your view, provided you are for the Union. I sug- 
gested compensated emancipation, to which you re- 
plied that you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. 
But I have not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, 
except in such way as to save you from greater taxa- 
tion, to save the Union exclusively by other means. 

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and 
perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is uncon- 
stitutional. I think differently. I think that the 
Constitution invests its Commander-in-chief with the 
laws of war in the time of war. The most that can be 
said, if so much, is, that the slaves are property. Is 
there, has there ever been, any question that by the 
law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may 
be taken when needed? And is it not needed when- 
ever taking it helps us or hurts the enemy? Armies, 
the world over, destroy enemies' property when they 
cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it 
from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their 
power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a 



LETTER TO JAMES C. CONKLING 199 

few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among 
the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes 
and non-combatants, male and female. But the proc- 
lamation, as law, is valid or is not valid. If it is not 
valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot 
be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought 
to life. Some of you profess to think that its retrac- 
tion would operate favorably for the Union. Why 
better after the retraction than before the issue? 
There was more than a year and a half of trial to sup- 
press the rebellion before the proclamation was issued, 
the last one hundred days of which passed under an 
explicit notice, that it was coming unless averted by 
those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The 
war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since 
the issue of the proclamation as before. I know as 
fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some 
of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have 
given us our most important victories, believe the 
emancipation policy and the aid of colored troops con- 
stitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to the rebellion, 
and that at least one of those important successes 
could not have been achieved when it was but for the 
aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders hold- 
ing these views are some who have never had any 
affinity with what is called abolitionism, or with "Re- 
publican Party politics," but who hold them purely 
as military opinions. I submit their opinions as being 
entitled to some weight against the objections often 
urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are 



200 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as 
such in good faith. , 

You say that you will not fight to free negroes. 
Some of them seem to be willing to fight for you — 
but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save 
the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to 
aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall 
have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall 
urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time 
then for you to declare that you will not fight to free 
negroes. I thought that, in your struggle for the 
Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease 
helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the 
enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differ- 
ently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got 
to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for white 
soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear 
otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, 
act upon motives. Why should they do anything for 
us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their 
lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest 
motive, even the promise of freedom. And the prom- 
ise, being made, must be kept. 

The signs look better. The Father of Waters again 
goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great North- 
west for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred 
miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, 
and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The 
sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a 
hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted 



LETTER TO JAMES C. CONKLING 201 

down in black and white. The job was a great na- 
tional one, and let none be banned who bore an honor- 
able part in it ; and while those who have cleared the 
great river may well be proud, even that is not all. 
It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely 
and better done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, 
Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note. Nor 
must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the 
water's margins they have been present : not only on 
the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but 
also up the narrow, muddy bayou ; and wherever the 
ground was a little damp, they have been and made 
their tracks. Thanks to all. For the great Republic 

— for the principles by which it lives and keeps alive 

— for man's vast future — thanks to all. Peace does 
not appear so far distant as it did. I hope it will 
come soon, and come to stay : and so come as to be 
worth the keeping in all future time. It will then 
have been proved that among freemen there can be 
no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and 
that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their 
case and pay the cost. And then there will be some 
black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, 
and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised 
bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great 
consummation ; while I fear that there will be some 
white men unable to forget that, with malignant heart 
and deceitful speech, they have striven to hinder it. 

Still, let us not be oversanguine of a speedy final 
triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently 



202 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in 
His own good time, will give us the rightful result. 

Yours very truly, 
A. Lincoln. 
James C. Conkling, Esq. 

FROM A LETTER TO C. D. DRAKE AND 

OTHERS 

October 5, 1863 

.... We are in a civil war. In such cases there 
always is a main question, but in this case that question 
is a perplexing compound — Union and slavery. It thus 
becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at 
least four sides, even among those who are for the 
Union, saying nothing of those who are against it. 
Thus, those who are for the Union with, but not without 
slavery; those for it without, but not with; those for 
it with or without, but prefer it with; and those for it 
with or without, but prefer it without. 

Among these, again, is a subdivision of those who 
are for gradual, but not for immediate, and those who 
are for immediate, but not for gradual extinction of 
slavery. 

It is easy to conceive that all these shades of opinion, 
and even more, may be sincerely entertained by honest 
and truthful men. Yet, all being for the Union, by 
reason of these differences each will prefer a different 
way of sustaining the Union. At once, sincerity is 
questioned, and motives are assailed. Actual war 



THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 203 

coming, blood grows hot and blood is spilled. Thought 
is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception 
breeds and thrives. Confidence dies, and universal 
suspicion reigns. Each man feels an impulse to kill 
his neighbor, lest he be killed by him. Revenge and 
retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may 
be among honest men only. But this is not all. Every 
foul bird comes abroad, and every dirty reptile rises 
up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures 
deemed indispensable, but harsh at best, such men 
make worse by maladministration. Murders for old 
grudges, and murders for pelf, proceed under any cloak 
that will best serve for the occasion. . . . 

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 

November 19, 1863 

This speech was delivered at the dedication of a national 
cemetery upon the field where the battle of Gettysburg had 
been fought in July, 1862. Edward Everett was the orator of 
the day, and after his address Lincoln spoke these impressive 
words. 

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in lib- 
erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great 
civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation 
so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 
are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have 
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest- 



204 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

ing-place for those who here gave their lives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can- 
not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow 
this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor 
power to add or detract. The world will little note, 
nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never 
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, 
rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us, — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, 
— that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain, — that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom, — and that government 
of the people, by the people, for the people, 1 shall not 
perish from the earth. 

1 In a sermon preached in Music Hall, Boston, on July 2, 1854, 
Theodore Parker, the great antislavery leader, said, "Now this 
government. • . in its form must be democratic : that is to say, the 
government of all, by all, and for all." The sermon begins : " There 
can be no national welfare without national unity of action. . . . 
Without this a nation is a ' house divided against itself : of course 
it cannot stand." Perhaps Lincoln had read Parker's sermon; at 
any rate Parker had anticipated him in the use of two phrases 
which Lincoln made famous. The entire sermon may be found in 
Old South Leaflet Number 80. 



OPINION ON PROPERTY 205 

AN OPINION ON PROPERTY 

From Lincoln's Reply to a Committee from the 
Workingmen's Association of New York 

March 21, 1S64 

. . . The strongest bond of human sympathy, out- 
side of the family relation, should be one uniting all 
working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kin- 
dreds. Nor should this lead to a war upon property, 
or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of 
labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in 
the world. That some should be rich shows that others 
may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement 
to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is house- 
less pull down the house of another, but let him labor 
diligently and build one for himself, thus by example 
assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when 
built. 

LETTER TO A. G. HODGES 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

April 4, 1864 

A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Kentucky 

My dear Sir, — You ask me to put in writing the 

substance of what I verbally said the other day in 

your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator 

Dixon. It was about as follows : — 

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not 

wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when 



206 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never under- 
stood that the Presidency conferred upon me an un- 
restricted right to act officially upon this judgment 
and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, 
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend 
the Constitution of the United States. I could not 
take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it 
my view that I might take an oath to get power, and 
break the oath in using the power. I understood, 
too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath 
even forbade me to practically indulge my primary 
abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. 
I had publicly declared this many times and in many 
ways, and I aver that, to this day, I have done no 
official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment 
and feeling on slavery. I did understand, however, 
that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best 
of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, 
by every indispensable means, that government, that 
nation, of which that Constitution was the organic 
law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet pre- 
serve the Constitution? By general law, life and 
limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be 
amputated to save a life ; but a life is never wisely 
given to save a limb. I felt that measures otherwise 
unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming 
indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution 
through the preservation of the nation. Right or 
wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I 
could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had 



LETTER TO A. O. HODGES 207 

even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save 
slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the 
wreck of government, country, and Constitution all 
together. When, early in the war, General Fremont 
attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because 
I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. 
When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secre- 
tary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I 
objected, because I did not yet think it an indispen- 
sable necessity. When, still later, General Hunter 
attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, 
because I did not yet think the indispensable neces- 
sity had come. When, in March and May and July, 
1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the 
border States to favor compensated emancipation, I 
believed the indispensable necessity for military eman- 
cipation and arming the blacks would come unless 
averted by that measure. They declined the propo- 
sition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the 
alternative of either surrendering the Union, and 
with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon 
the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing 
it I hoped for greater gain than loss ; but of this I was 
not entirely confident. More than a year of trial 
now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none 
in our home popular sentiment, none in our white 
military force, — no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. 
On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a hundred 
and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. 
These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there 



208 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

can be no caviling. We have the men; and we could 
not have had them without the measure. 

"And now let any Union man who complains of 
the measure test himself by writing down in one line 
that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms ; 
and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred 
and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and 
placing them where they would be but for the meas- 
ure he condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, 
it is only because he cannot face the truth." 

I add a word which was not in the verbal conver- 
sation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment 
to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled 
events, but confess plainly that events have controlled 
me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the 
nation's condition is not what either party, or any 
man, devised or expected. God alone can claim it. 
Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills 
the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we 
of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay 
fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial his- 
tory will find therein new cause to attest and revere 
the justice and goodness of God. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



LETTER TO MRS. HORACE MANN 209 

LETTER TO MRS. HORACE MANX 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

April 5, 1864 

Mrs. Horace Mann : 

Madam: — The petition of persons under eighteen, 
praying that I would free all slave children, and the 
heading of which petition it appears you wrote, was 
handed me a few days since by Senator Sumner. Please 
tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts 
are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that, 
while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I 
trust they will remember that God has, and that, as 
it seems, He wills to do it. 

Yours truly. 

A. Lixcolx. 

DEFINITION OF LIBERTY 

From an Address at a Sanitary Fair in Baltimore, 

April IS, 1864 

. . . .The world has never had a good definition of 
the word "liberty," and the American people, just now, 
are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; 
but in using the same word, we do not all mean the 
same thing. With some, the word "liberty" may mean 
for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the 
product of his labor ; while with others, the same word 
may mean for some men to do as they please with other 
men and the product of other men's labor. Here are 



210 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

two, not only different, but incompatible things, called 
by the same name, — liberty. And it follows that each 
of the things is, by the respective parties, called by 
two different and incompatible names, — liberty and 
tyranny. 

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, 
for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, 
while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the 
destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black 
one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed 
upon a definition of the word " liberty " ; and precisely 
the same difference prevails to-day, among us human 
creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love 
liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thou- 
sands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage 
hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed 
by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as 
it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing some- 
thing to define liberty, and thanks to them that, in what 
they have done, the wolf's dictionary has been repu- 
diated. 

MESSAGES TO GENERAL GRANT 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

April 30, 1864 
Lieutenant-General Grant : 

Not expecting to see you again before the spring 
campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire 
satisfaction with what you have done up to this, time, so 
far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I 



MESSAGES TO GENERAL GRANT 211 

neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and 
self-reliant ; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude 
any constraints nor restraints upon you. While I am 
very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our 
men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these 
points are less likely to escape your attention than they 
would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is 
within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. 
And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God 
sustain vou. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

Washington, D. C, August 3, 1864 
Lieutenant-General Grant, City Point, Va. : 

I have seen your despatch in which you say, "I want 
Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field, 
with instructions to put himself south of the enemy, 
and follow him to the death. Wherever the enemy 
goes, let our troops go also." This, I think, is exactly 
right as to how our forces should move; but please 
look over the despatches you may have received from 
here, ever since you made that order, and discover, if 
you can, that there is any idea in the head of anyone 
here of " putting our army south of the enemy," or of 
following him to the " death," in any direction. I re- 
peat to you, it will neither be done nor attempted, 
unless you watch it every day and hour, and force it. 

A. Lincoln. 



212 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
August 17, 1864, 10 : 30 a. m. 
Lieutenant-General Grant, City Point, Va. : 

I have seen your despatch expressing your unwilling- 
ness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I 
willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip and chew and 

choke as much as possible. 

A. Lincoln. 

FROM AN ADDRESS TO THE 166TH OHIO 

REGIMENT 

August 22, 1864 
I almost always feel inclined, when I happen to say 
anything to soldiers, to impress upon them, in a few 
brief remarks, the importance of success in this con- 
test. It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to 
come, that we should perpetuate for our children's 
children that great and free government which we have 
enjoyed all our lives. I beg you to remember this, 
not merely for my sake, but for yours. I happen, 
temporarily, to occupy this White House. I am a 
living witness that any one of your children may look 
to come here as my father's child has. It is in order 
that each one of you may have, through this free govern- 
ment which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair 
chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence ; 
that you may all have equal privileges in the race of 
life, with all its desirable human aspirations. It is 
for this the struggle should be maintained, that we 
may not lose our birthright - - not only for one, but 



REPLY TO A SERENADE 213 

for two or three years. The nation is worth fighting 
for, to secure such an inestimable; jewel. 

REPLY TO A SERENADE 

November 10, 1864 

It has long been a grave question whether any govern- 
ment not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be 
strong enough to maintain its existence in great emer- 
gencies. On this point the present rebellion brought 
our Republic to a severe test ; and a presidential elec- 
tion, occurring in regular course during the rebellion, 
added not a little to the strain. 

If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of 
their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when 
divided and partially paralyzed by a political war 
among themselves? But the election was a necessity. 
We cannot have free government without elections ; and 
if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a 
national election, it might fairly claim to have already 
conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is 
but human nature practically applied to the facts of 
the case. What has occurred in this case must ever 
occur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. 
In any future great national trial, compared with the 
men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as 
silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, there- 
fore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to learn 
wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be re- 
venged. But the election, along with its incidental 
and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has dem- 



214 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

onstrated that a people's government can sustain a 
national election in the midst of a great civil war. 
Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, patriotic 
men are better than gold. 

But the rebellion continues; and now that the 
election is over, may not all having a common interest 
reunite in a common effort to save our common coun- 
try? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive 
to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as 
I have been here, I have not willingly planted a 
thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible 
to the high compliment of a reelection, and duly grate- 
ful as I trust to Almighty God for having directed my 
countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their 
own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any 
other man may be disappointed or pained by the result. 

May I ask those who have not differed with me, to 
join with me in this same spirit towards those who have? 
And now let me close by asking three hearty cheers for 
our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and 
skillful commanders. 

LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY, OF BOSTON 

November 21, ISO % 

Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the 
War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General 
of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons 
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel 
how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 215 

which should attempt to beguile you from the grief 
of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that may be found in 
the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray 
that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of 
your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished 
memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride 
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice 
upon the altar of freedom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

March 4, ISO 5 

In June, 1864, Lincoln was renominated for the presidency 
at the convention of a Union Party held in Baltimore ; and 
although during the summer of that year he expected to be 
defeated, he was elected in the fall by a popular vote of 2,330,552 
against 1,835,985. "I give you joy of the election," Emerson 
wrote to a friend. "Seldom in history was so much staked on 
a popular vote. I suppose never in history." 

By March of 1865 the end of the war was in sight. In De- 
cember, 1864, Sherman had taken possession of Savannah, and 
Thomas had defeated Hood at Nashville ; in January, 1865, the 
House had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment; in February 
Lincoln's cabinet had rejected his suggestion that four hundred 
million dollars be paid as compensation for slaves. The Second 
Inaugural looks forward with magnanimity to the approaching 
peace. 

Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less 
occasion for an extended address than there was at 



216 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

the first. Then, a statement, somewhat in detail, of 
a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. 
Now, at the expiration of four years, during which 
public declarations have been constantly called forth 
on every point and phase of the great contest which 
still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies 
of the nation, little that is new could be presented. 
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; 
and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encour- 
aging to all. .With high hope for the future, no pre- 
diction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impend- 
ing civil war. All dreaded it ; all sought to avert it. 
While the inaugural address was being delivered from 
this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union 
without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking 
to destroy it without war - - seeking to dissolve the 
Union, and divide effects, by negotiations. 1 Both par- 
ties deprecated war ; but one of them would make war 
rather than let the nation survive ; and the other would 
accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the southern part of it. These slaves con- 
stituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew 

1 On the day following the first inauguration of Lincoln, commis- 
sioners of the Confederacy applied to Secretary Seward for recogni- 
tion as envoys of a foreign power. Seward refused the recognition 
but entered into secret negotiations with the commissioners. 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 217 

that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. 
To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest 
was the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union, even by war; while the Government claimed 
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial en- 
largement of it. Neither party expected for the war 
* the magnitude or the duration which it has already at- 
tained. Neither anticipated that the cause * of the con- 
flict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself 
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and 
a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read 
the same Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each 
invokes His aid against the other. It may seem 
strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's 
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of 
other men's faces : but let us judge not, that we be 
not judged. The prayers of both could not be an- 
swered ; that of neither has been answered fully. The 
Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the 
world because of offenses ! for it must needs be that 
offenses come ; but woe to that man by whom the of- 
fense cometh." If we shall suppose American slav- 
ery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of 
God, must needs come, but which, having continued 
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, 
and that He gives to both North and South this terri- 
ble war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense 
came, shall we discern therein any departure from 

1 Note that Lincoln emphatically declares that the "slave interest" 
was the cause of the war. 



218 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

those divine attributes which the believers in a living 
God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fer- 
vently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the- 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must 
be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up 
the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan; 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a 
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 

A LETTER TO THURLOW WEED 

Executive Mansion, Washington 

March 15,1865 
Dear Mr. Weed, Every one likes a compliment. 
Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and 
on the recent inaugural address. I expect the latter to 
wear as well as — perhaps better than — anything I 
have produced; but I believe it is not immediately 
popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that 
there has been a difference of purpose between the Al- 



LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 219 

mighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, 
is' to deny that there is a God governing the world. It 
is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as what- 
ever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on 
myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it. 

Truly yours, 
A. Lincoln. 

LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 

April 11, 1865 

Lincoln's last public utterance, though dealing chiefly with 
the government of Louisiana, is interesting because it shows 
his measures for reconstruction. 

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in glad- 
ness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and 
Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insur- 
gent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, 
whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the 
midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings 
flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national 
thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly pro- 
mulgated. Nor must those whose harder part gives us 
the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their honors 
must not be parceled out with others. I myself was 
near the front, and had the high pleasure of trans- 
mitting much of the good news to you; but no part 
of the honor for plan or execution is mine. To Gen- 
eral Grant, his skillful officers and brave men, all be- 
longs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not 
in reach to take active part. 



220 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
national authority, - - reconstruction, — which has had 
a large share of thought from the first, is pressed 
much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught 
with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between 
independent nations, there is no authorized organ for 
us to treat with, — no one man has authority to give 
up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must 
begin with and mold from disorganized and discord- 
ant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrass- 
ment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves 
as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruc- 
tion. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the 
reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be pro- 
voked by that to which I cannot properly offer an 
answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes 
to my knowledge that I am much censured for some 
supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain 
the new State government of Louisiana. 

In this I have done just so much as, and no more 
than, the public knows. In the annual message of 
December, 1863, and in the accompanying proclama- 
tion, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the 
phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any 
State, should be acceptable to and sustained by the 
executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated 
that this was not the only plan which might possibly 
be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that the 
executive claimed no right to say when or whether 
members should be admitted to seats in Congress from 




Copyright, 1907, by Gutzon Borglum 

Bust of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum, 
Washington, D.C. 



LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 221 

such States. This plan was in advance submitted to 
the then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every 
member of it. One of them suggested that I should 
then and in that connection apply the Emancipation 
Proclamation to the theretofore excepted parts of Vir- 
ginia and Louisiana, that I should drop the suggestion 
about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I 
should omit the protest against my own power in 
regard to the admission of members to Congress. But 
even he approved every part and parcel of the plan 
which has since been employed or touched by the 
action of Louisiana. 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring eman- 
cipation for the whole State, practically applies the 
proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does 
not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it is 
silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the 
admission of members to Congress. So that, as it 
applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet 
fully approved the plan. The message went to Con- 
gress, and I received many commendations of the 
plan, written and verbal; and not a single objection 
to it from any professed emancipationist came to my 
knowledge until after the news reached Washington 
that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in 
accordance with it. From about July, 1862, I had 
corresponded with different persons supposed to be 
interested in seeking a reconstruction of a State gov- 
ernment for Louisiana. When the message of 1863, 
with the plan before mentioned, reached New Orleans, 



222 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

General Banks wrote me that he was confident that 
the people, with his military cooperation, would recon- 
struct substantially on that plan. I wrote to him and 
some of them to try it. They tried it, and the result 
is known. Such has been my only agency in getting 
up the Louisiana government. 

As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before 
stated. But as bad promises are better broken than 
kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it 
whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is ad- 
verse to the public interest ; but I have not yet been 
so convinced. I have been shown a letter on this 
subject, supposed to be an able one, in which the 
writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed 
to be definitely fixed on the question whether the se- 
ceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. 
It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret were 
he to learn that since I have found professed Union 
men endeavoring to make that question, I have pur- 
posely forborne any public expression upon it. As 
appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet 
is, a practically material one, and that any discussion 
of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, 
could have no effect other than the mischievous one 
of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may 
hereafter become, that question is bad as the basis 
of a controversy, and good for nothing at all — a 
merely pernicious abstraction. 

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are 
out of their proper practical relation with the Union, 



LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 223 

and that the sole object of the government, civil and 
military, in regard to those States is to again get them 
into that proper practical relation. I believe that 
it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this 
without deciding or even considering whether these 
States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. 
Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly 
immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let 
us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring 
the proper practical relations between these States 
and the Union, and each forever after innocently in- 
dulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he 
brought the States from without into the Union, or 
only gave them proper assistance, they never having 
been out of it. The amount of constituency, so to 
speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests 
would be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000, 
or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, 
as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that the 
elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I 
would myself prefer that it were now conferred on 
the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause 
as soldiers. 

Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana 
government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. 
The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and 
help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Can 
Louisiana be brought into proper practical relations 
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding 
her new State government? Some twelve thousand 



224 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

voters in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have 
sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the 
rightful political power of the State, held elections, 
organized a State government, adopted a free-State 
constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally 
to black and white, and empowering the legislature to 
confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. 
Their legislature has already voted to ratify the con- 
stitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, 
abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union 
and to perpetual freedom in the State — committed to 
the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation 
wants — and they ask the nation's recognition and its 
assistance to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say 
to the white man : You are worthless or worse ; we 
will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To 
the blacks we say : This cup of liberty which these, 
your old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from 
you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the 
spilled and scattered contents in some vague and un- 
defined when, where, and how If this course, dis- 
couraging and paralyzing both white and black, has 
any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical 
relations with the Union, I have so far been unable 
to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and 
sustain the new government of Louisiana, the con- 
verse of all this is made true. We encourage the 



LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 225 

hearts and nerve the arms of the 12,000 to adhere to 
their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and 
fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a 
complete success. The colored man, too, in seeing all 
united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, 
and daring, to the same end. Grant that he desires the 
elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by sav- 
ing the already advanced steps toward it than by run- 
ning backward over them? Concede that the new 
government of Louisiana is only to what it should be 
as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the 
fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one 
vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the na- 
tional Constitution. To meet this proposition, it has 
been argued that no more than three-fourths of those 
States which have not attempted secession are neces- 
sary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not com- 
mit myself against this further than to say that such 
a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be 
persistently questioned, while a ratification by three- 
fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and 
unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can Louisi- 
ana be brought into proper practical relation with the 
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 
State government? What has been said of Louisi- 
ana will apply generally to other States. And yet so 
great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such im- 
portant and sudden changes occur in the same State, 
and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole 



226 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely 
be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such ex- 
clusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new 
entanglement. Important principles may and must 
be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase 
goes, it may be my duty to make some new announce- 
ment to the people of the South. I am considering, 
and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will 
be proper. 



APPENDIX A 

Glossary of Political Terms 

American or Know-Nothing Party. This party came into 
prominence about 1852, following the enormous immigration 
caused by the Irish famine of 1847 and the continental European 
revolutions of 1848-1850. At first the party was a secret order 
whose real name was "Sons of '76, or Order of the Star-Spangled 
Banner." All questions regarding the order were answered, 
"I don't know," — whence the popular name. It opposed the 
seizure of political control by immigrants. Its motto was, 
" Americans must rule America." At first it exerted its power 
by secretly indorsing selected candidates nominated by other 
parties, and in the elections of 1854 and 1855 it elected the 
governors and legislatures of several States. At its first na- 
tional convention, held in Philadelphia in 185G, it nominated 
Millard Fillmore of New York for President on a platform 
which attempted to avoid a strong committal on the slavery 
issue. But that issue had become paramount, and the ad- 
herents of the American Party thereafter transferred their 
allegiance to the parties which seemed to have a program 
regarding slavery, most of them joining the Republican Party. 
Fillmore polled 874,000 votes but secured only 8 electors. 

Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 was made 
necessary by the renewal of the question of extending slavery 
into the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. This country 
included Oregon, which had become a Free Territory in 1848 ; 
California, which sought admission in 1848 under a Free-State 
constitution ; and Utah and New Mexico, which it was proposed 
to organize as Territories. By the terms of the compromise 
California was admitted as a Free State ; Utah and New Mexico 
were organized as Territories with the stipulation that when 
admitted as States they should be received "with or without 

227 



228 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

slavery," as their constitutions might prescribe. This com- 
promise left the question of slavery to the citizens of the two 
Territories. Such a" policy had been advocated before 1850 by 
the slave party, and came to be known as the doctrine of popular 
sovereignty, or squatter sovereignty. Another measure of the 
compromise enacted a new and more stringent Fugitive-Slave 
law. A final enactment abolished the slave trade in the District 
of Columbia. 

Democratic Party. This party was first known as the 
Republican Party, then as the Democratic-Republican Party, 
and finally as the Democratic Party, taking its present name 
in President Jackson's time. Thomas Jefferson, founder of the 
party, classified men as political thinkers in two classes: "(1) 
Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all 
powers from them into the hands of the higher classes ; (2) those 
who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in 
them, cherish and consider them as the most wise depositary 
of the public interests." Jefferson claimed that Americans of 
the second class belonged in his party. Thinkers like Bryant 
and Walt Whitman were for a time Democrats for the very 
reason stated by Jefferson; but many men like Lincoln, as 
genuinely believers in the ultimate justice of the people, were 
Whigs. Emerson once observed that in principle the Demo- 
crats were more liberal than the Whigs but that the Whig Party 
contained more capable men. 

The Democratic Party held sway between 1801 and 1825 and 
in the time of Jackson, 1829-1837. During those years it 
insisted upon a strict construction of the Constitution and local 
self-government rather than a strongly centralized government. 
Gradually the interests of the South gained sway in party coun- 
sels. The platform of 1840, section 7, censured "efforts made 
by abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere 
with questions of slavery or to take incipient steps in relation 
thereto." Upon this platform Van Buren was defeated, but 
the section just quoted was used as the basis for all national 
Democratic platforms from that date until the Civil War. The 
platform of 1844 called for the annexation of Texas, and the 
Democrat, Polk, was elected. In 1844 the Whig, Taylor, was 
elected. The platform of 1852 defended the Mexican War as 
"just and necessary," and Pierce was elected. The famous 



APPENDIX A 220 

Cincinnati platform of 1856 declared for the Compromise of 
1850 with the Fugitive-Slave law, and promised to resist all 
attempts at renewing in Congress, or out of it, the agitation of 
the slavery question. At the Charlestown convention of April 23, 
1860, the party split. The Northern Democrats nominated 
Douglas at Baltimore on June 18 ; ten days later the Southern 
Democrats nominated Breckinridge of Kentucky. Douglas's 
platform declared that it would abide by the decisions of the 
Supreme Court, that it favored the acquisition of Cuba, that 
it opposed State laws subversive of the Fugitive-Slave law, 
and that regarding federal control of slavery in the Territories, 
decisions of the Supreme Court past and future should decide. 
The platform of the Southern faction insisted upon the right 
of all citizens to settle in Territories with their "property" and 
to have it protected. After war broke out, most Northern 
Democrats remained loyal to the Union. The platform of 
1864 referred to "four years of failure to restore the Union by 
the experiment of war" and called for a cessation of hostilities 
with view to an ultimate convention of all the States. The 
nominee, General George B. McClellan, repudiated part of the 
platform. Kentucky, New Jersey, and Delaware were the only 
States which returned Democratic votes to the electoral college 
in this election. 

Dred Scott Case. Dred Scott was a negro slave born in 
Missouri about 1810. His master, a Dr. Emerson, took him to 
Illinois in 1834 and to Wisconsin Territory (Minnesota) in 1836. 
The question later agitated was whether residence in free territory 
had not freed the slave. He returned to Missouri with his 
master in 1838. In 1848 Francis P. Blair, Jr., a Free Soil lawyer, 
induced Dred to sue for assault and battery on being whipped 
by his master. The State Circuit Court held that his residence 
on free soil had made him free and that he consequently had a 
right to sue as a free citizen. The Supreme Court of Missouri 
reversed the decision by a vote of three to two. Scott was then 
sold to J. F. A. Sandford of New York, who was sued for assault 
and battery in carrying off Scott. The suit was tried in the 
Federal Court of Missouri this time, on the constitutional ground 
that Scott and Sandford were citizens of different States. This 
court decided that being a negro did not prevent Scott from 
being a citizen, but that Sandford had legally coerced a slave. 



230 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

The case was brought before the December term of the Federal 
Supreme Court in the winter of 1855-1856. Chief Justice Taney 
and six assisting judges concurred against Scott, Judges Curtis 
and McClean dissenting. It was decided that Dred Scott as a 
negro was not a citizen of the United States within the intent 
of the Constitution. Justice Taney made various observations 
known as obiter dicta, not an essential part of the decision. 
Some of the most important were : (1) African negroes had never 
been recognized in American law or customs as persons. The 
dissenting judges called attention to the Constitution's mention 
of negroes as persons and to the fact that in 1787 negroes voted 
in five States ; they contended that the civil rights of a free 
negro were the same as those of women and minors. (2) Con- 
gress had no power to make regulations for the Territories 
acquired after the adoption of the Constitution except under the 
Constitution, which recognized slaves as property. The fifth 
amendment provides that Congress cannot take away property 
from a citizen without compensation ; therefore, as slaves were 
property, Congress had no right to bar slave property from the 
Territories. The dissenting judges claimed that slavery was a 
State institution, and that once out of the State's power a slave 
became free by the law of nature ; State law could not follow 
him into the Territories. (3) At the time when the Constitution 
was adopted, negroes were so far inferior that they had no rights 
which the white man was bound to respect. They had no rights 
whatever except as each State chose to give them. They were 
not included in the terms "people" and." citizens" in the Decla- 
ration or the Constitution. 

Free Soil Party. This party was founded in 1848 by a 
coalition of the Liberty Party; the "Conscience Whigs" of 
Massachusetts, such as Sumner, who supported the Wilmot 
Proviso; and the Van Buren faction of New York Democrats. 
The first national convention, held at Buffalo in 1848, nominated 
Van Buren for the Presidency on the platform of "Free Soil, 
Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men," insisting that Congress 
should prohibit slavery in the Territories. The Party elected 
to the thirty-first Congress two senators (Chase and Hale) and 
fourteen representatives, including Lincoln's ally of later years, 
Giddings. In 1852 the platform denounced the Compromise 
of 1850 and declared slavery a "sin against God and a crime 



APPENDIX A 231 

against man." About 1855 most of the adherents of this party 
became Republicans. Lincoln was never a member of the 
party, but it numbered such men as Bryant, Whittier, Walt Whit- 
man, Lowell, and Emerson. 

Fugitive-Slave Law. The provision concerning fugitive 
slaves in the Constitution (Art. IV, Sec. 2) reads as follows: 
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, 
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due." Slaveholders often claimed that 
this provision was not enforced, and sought more efficacious 
legislation. The most stringent enactment in their favor was 
that of the Compromise of 1850, which required all good citizens 
to assist the officers in recovering runaway slaves and provided 
fines of a thousand dollars and imprisonment for six months as 
penalties for those in any way obstructing the execution of the 
law. (Text in Macdonald : Documentary Source Boole of Ameri- 
can History, p. 390.) As a result of opposition to this enactment 
several states passed "personal liberty laws," intended to prevent 
injustice to free negroes. 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill. From 1844 on, futile efforts were 
made to organize into a Territory the region west of Missouri 
and east of the Rocky Mountains which had been left without 
organization in 1820-1821. These efforts became more determined 
in the thirty-third session of Congress (1853-1854) . On January 4, 
1854, Douglas introduced a bill for organizing the Territory of 
Nebraska with the provision regarding slavery which had been 
introduced in the bill for organizing Utah and New Mexico in 
1850, namely, that when admitted as States they should be 
received with or without slavery as their State constitutions 
should prescribe. On January 23, Douglas offered amendments, 
providing for two Territories instead of one, and declaring that 
the Missouri Compromise did not apply to these Territories, as 
it had been superseded by the Compromise of 1850. On Feb- 
ruary 6, Douglas offered an amendment declaring the Missouri 
Compromise "inconsistent" with the Compromise of 1850, and 
the following day offered another amendment in which he 
adopted the language of the fourteenth section of the bill as it 
was finally passed. This section declares the compromise 



232 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

measures of 1820 "inoperative and void; it being the true 
intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution 
of the United States." The bill was- approved on the 30th of 
May, 1854. It is commonly referred to in Lincoln's works as 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill or the Nebraska bill, but occasionally, 
since it abrogated the measures of 1820, is called the Repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise. 

Know-Nothing Party. See American Party. 

Lecompton Constitution. The following summary is quoted 
from Macdonald's Documentary Source Book of American History, 
pp. 420-21. 

"A free State convention sitting at Topeka, in Kansas Terri- 
tory, from Oct. 23 to Nov. 5, 1855, drew up a State constitution 
prohibiting slavery, which was submitted to the people Dec. 15 
and adopted by a vote of 1,731 to 46, only free State men voting. 
A bill to admit Kansas under this constitution passed the House 
July 3, 1856, but failed in the Senate. A free State legislature, 
assuming to meet under the Topeka constitution, was dispersed 
by the United States troops, and a period of civil war in the 
Territory followed. September 5, 1857, a convention called by 
the proslavery legislature of the Territory met at Lecompton 
and drew up a constitution, which was submitted to the people 
for adoption 'with slavery' or 'without slavery.' The free 
State men, who objected to having the Lecompton Constitution 
on any terms, refrained from voting, and Dec. 21 the constitution 
'with slavery' was adopted by a vote of 6,143, against 589 for 
the constitution 'without slavery.' In the meantime, however, 
the free State party had got control of the Territorial legislature, 
and Jan. 4, 1858, the constitution was rejected by a majority 
of more than 10,000. A bill to admit Kansas under the Lecomp- 
ton Constitution passed the Senate March 23, 1858, by a vote of 
33 to 25. April 1 the House, by a vote of 120 to 112, substituted 
a bill resubmitting the constitution to popular vote. The two 
Houses then compromised on the 'English bill' (act of May 4, 
1854), 'according to which a substitute for the land ordinance of 
the Lecompton Constitution was to be submitted to popular vote 
in Kansas ; if it was accepted, the State was to be considered as 



APPENDIX A 233 

admitted; if it was rejected, the Lecompton Constitution was 
to be considered as rejected by the people, and no further con- 
stitutional convention was to be held until a census should have 
shown that the population of the Territory equalled or exceeded 
that required for a representative' (Johnston). August 3 the 
land ordinance was rejected by a vote of 11,088 to 1,788. The 
Wyandotte Constitution, prohibiting slavery, was ratified by 
popular vote Oct. 4, 1859. Under this constitution Kansas 
was admitted to the Union Jan. 29, 1861." 

Article 7, section 1, of the Lecompton Constitution read : " The 
right of property is before and higher than any constitutional 
sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and 
its increase is the same, and as inviolable as the right of the 
owner of any property whatever." The theory here enunciated 
is as much at variance with Lincoln's understanding of the 
rights of property and the rights of slaves as it could possibly be. 

Liberty Party. This short-lived political party was founded 
by liberal Abolitionists who seceded from the Garrison faction 
in 1839. In April, 1840, the first national convention of the 
party nominated James G. Birney for the Presidency, and the 
ticket received 7,059 votes. In the elections of 1844 the party 
polled 62,300 votes. In 1848 the adherents of this party sup- 
ported the Free Soil candidates. 

Missouri Compromise. In 1819-1820, when Missouri was 
seeking admission as a State, the question of excluding slavery 
from her boundaries aroused such feeling that a compromise had 
to be effected in order that she might be admitted at all. By 
this compromise the antislavery party allowed Missouri to 
come in without the prohibition of slavery, and the proslavery 
party agreed that slavery should be prohibited from the 
remainder of the Louisiana Purchase, north of 36° 30'. It was 
also agreed that since Missouri came in as a slave State, Maine 
should be admitted as a free State. The addition of these States, 
making twenty-four States in the Union, twelve slave and 
twelve free, kept the senatorial representation equally divided 
between those which favored and those which opposed slavery. 

Nebraska Bill. See Kansas-Nebraska Bill. 

Popular Sovereignty. Popular sovereignty, or squatter 
sovereignty, was a doctrine developed from the legal theory 
that the occupants of land had certain rights in it. The doctrine 



234 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

came to be offered, from 1848 on, by the slavery party, as a 
proper basis for deciding the status of slavery in the territories 
and newly formed states. Douglas announced and supported 
this doctrine in debating upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill, arguing 
that all questions regarding slavery should be decided by the 
citizens of Kansas and Nebraska for themselves. 

Repeal op Missouri Compromise. See Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill. 

Republican Party. This party, founded in 1854 by oppo- 
nents of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, drew most of 
its followers from the Free Soil Party, the Whigs, and later from 
the American Party. The earliest Republican convention of 
importance was held at Jackson, Michigan, on July 6, 1854. 
In the 34th Congress, which met in December, 1855, there were 
in the Senate 15 Republicans, 42 Democrats, and 5 Americans; 
and in the House of Representatives there were 108 Republicans, 
83 Democrats, and 45 Americans. The Whig Party had dis- 
appeared. The first Republican national convention met at 
Philadelphia in June, 1856, nominated J. C. Fremont of California 
for the Presidency, and prepared a platform declaring that it 
was the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in the 
Territories. As a result of the election of 1856, Fremont received 
114 electoral votes, and James Buchanan (Democrat) polled 174. 
The Republican national convention at Chicago on May 16-18, 
1860, nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency on the 
third ballot. In the election which followed, Lincoln received 
180 electoral votes, the combined vote for his opponents being 
123. The most significant plank in the national platform of 
1860 stated, "We deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial 
legislature, or any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery 
in any Territory of the United States." 

Squatter Sovereignty. See Popular Sovereignty. 

Whig Party. This party succeeded the National Republican 
Party, which was itself the heir of the old Federal Party of 
Alexander Hamilton. The Whig Party arose in 1834, the name 
being used to signify opposition to the executive usurpation of 
President Jackson, a Democrat. The party elected General 
W. H. Harrison to the Presidency in 1840. In 1844 Henry Clay 
was nominated and defeated. Clay and Webster were the 
great leaders of the party, and both aimed to preserve the Union. 



APPENDIX A 235 

Consequently both of them were suspected of dishonest trimming 
by the abolition wing of their party. The Mexican War widened 
the breach between what were called in Massachusetts the 
Conscience Whigs (antislavery) and the Cotton Whigs (pro- 
slavery). The Whigs elected General Zachary Taylor to the 
Presidency in 1848; he was their second and last successful 
candidate. Clay and Webster worked for the Compromise of 
1850, and the Whig platform of 1852 approved the Compromise 
by a vote of 212 to 70 The party was overwhelmingly defeated 
in the elections of 1852. In 1856 a convention of what remained 
in the party indorsed the American candidate for the Presidency. 
Northern Whigs like Lincoln became Republicans; Southern 
Whigs became Democrats. There were, of course, a few excep- 
tions to this general statement; some wealthy men voted as 
their business interests inclined, and a few generous spirits tried 
to found a new party of compromise in 1860. 

Wilmot Proviso. In 1848, when President Polk wished an 
appropriation for settling boundary disputes with Mexico, 
David Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved that the appropriation 
be granted but with a provision that " neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude" should ever exist in any territory acquired from 
Mexico. This became known as the Wilmot Proviso. It was 
voted down in 1846 and again in 1847, after which it was with- 
drawn, and an appropriation made without the restriction. 



APPENDIX B 



Chronological Tables 



TABLE I 

1809-1860 



Lincoln's Life 


American History 


American Literature 


1809 


Lincoln born, Feb- 


James Madison, 


Irving's Knicker- 




ruary 12, in Har- 


Democrat, of Vir- 


bocker History. 




din, Kentucky. 


ginia, inaugurated 


Death of Tom 






as President. 


Paine. Poe and 
Holmes born. 


1810 




Trouble with 
France and Eng- 
land regarding 
American mari- 
time rights. 




1811 




War with Great 


Harriet Beecher 






Britain threatens. 


Stowe born. 


1812 




Louisiana admitted 
as slave state. 
War declared 
against Great 
Britain. 




1813 




Perry's victory on 
Lake Erie. 




1814 




Hartford Conven- 
tion declares the 
right to secede. 
Peace with Great 
Britain declared 
on December 24 


Motley born. 


1815 




Decatur's expedi- 
tion to the Medi- 
terranean. Treaty 
with Algiers. 





236 



APPENDIX B 



237 



Lincoln's Life 



1816 Moves to Indiana. 



1817 



1818 



1819 



Death of Lincoln's 
mother, Nancy- 
Hanks Lincoln. 



Lincoln's father 
marries Sarah 
Eush Johnston. 



1820 



1821 



American History 



1822 



Indiana admitted 
as a free state. 
Monroe reelected. 

Mississippi admitted 
as a slave state. 
"Era of good 
feeling." 

Contention over 
Missouri. Ques- 
tion of disunion 
discussed. Illinois 
admitted as a free 
state. 

The House for pro- 
hibiting slavery 
in Missouri ; the 
Senate for ad- 
mitting it as a 
slave state. 
Alabama admitted 
as a slave state. 
Missouri Com- 
promise passed. 
The Cabinet 
agrees that Con- 
gress could pro- 
hibit slavery in 
a Territory. 
Maine admitted 
as a free state. 
Maritime slave 
trade made piracy. 

Missouri admitted 
conditionally as a 
slave state. 
Liberia founded. 



American Literature 



Bryant admitted 
to the bar. 

Bryant's Thana- 
topsis. Thoreau 
born. 



Walt Whitman and 
Lowell born. 



Irving's Sketch 
Book. 



Lundy's Genius of 
Universal Eman- 
cipation; Cooper's 
The Spy; Irving's 
Bracebridge Hall; 
Bryant's first 
volume of Poems. 
Emerson grad- 
uated at Harvard. 



238 



LINCOLN SELECTIONS 



Lincoln's Life 


American History 


American Literature 


1823 




The Monroe Doc- 


Cooper's The Pio- 






trine enunciated. 


neers. Park- 
man born. 


1824 




No electoral ma- 


Cooper's The 






jority for Presi- 


Pilot; Irving's 






dent, the choice 


Tales of a 






falling to the 


Traveler. 






House of Repre- 








sentatives. 




1825 




Separation of Dem- 


Longfellow grad- 






ocratic and AVhig 


uated at Bow- 






parties ; slavery 


doin. Webster's 






an issue. John 


first Bunker Hill 






Quincy Adams 


Address. 






President. 




1826 




Death of Thomas 


Cooper's The Last 






Jefferson. 


of the Mohicans. 


1827 






Whittier at Haver- 
hill Academy. 
Cooper's The 
Prairie; Poe's 
Tamerlane. 


1828 


Lincoln goes to 


North now for 






New Orleans on a 


tariff. "Tariff of 






flatboat. 


abominations." 
State sovereignty 
involved in 
Georgia versus 
Creek and 
Cherokee Indians. 




1829 




Jackson and the 


Holmes graduated 






Spoils System. 


at Harvard. 






Georgia and South 


Longfellow a pro- 






Carolina for doc- 


fessor at Bow- 






trine of Nullifica- 


doin. Bryant 






tion. Mexico 


becomes editor- 






abolishes slavery. 


in-chief of the 
New York Post. 
Irving's Conquest 








of Granada. 



APPEXDIX B 



239 



Lincoln's Life 



1830 



Lincoln moves to 
Macon County, 
Illinois. 
1831 To New Orleans on 
a flatboat. In 
July to New 
Salem in Sanga- 
mon County. 
Clerk in a store. 



1832 A captain in the 

Black Hawk War. 
Defeated for the 
Illinois legislature. 



1833 Fails in business 

with Berry. Post- 
master of New 
Salem ; deputy- 
surveyor of San- 
gamon County. 
Begins to study 
law. 

1834 Elected to lower 

house of Illinois 
legislature. 



1835 In the Illinois legis- 
lature, leader of 



American History 



Webster-Hayne 

debate. 

Insurrection of 
negroes at South- 
ampton, Va. 
under leadership 
of Nat Turner. 
Debate on Slavery 
in Virginia 
legislature. 

South Carolina 
votes nullification 
of tariff law. 
Jackson sends 
troops to collect 
revenues. Cal- 
houn resigns the 
vice-presidency. 
Antislavery 
societies organized 
in Massachusetts 
and New York. 

American Anti- 
slavery Society 
founded. Garri- 
son dragged 
through the 
streets of Boston. 
Congress passes a 
compromise tariff 
and the Force Bill. 

Jackson calls at- 
tention to excite- 
ment in South 
caused by at- 
tempts to circu- 
late abolitionist 
propaganda. 

Oberlin College 
opened to negroes. 



American Literature 



Sumner graduated 
at Harvard. 

Garrison's Libera- 
tor founded. 
Wendell Phillips 
graduated at 
Harvard. 



Irving's The 
Alhambra. 



Whittier's Justice 
and Expediency. 



Whittier's Expos- 
tulation. 



Whittier elected to 

Massachusetts 



240 



LINCOLN SELECTIOXS 



Lincoln's Life 


American History 


American Literature 


the "Long Nine." 




legislature. 


Love affair with 




Mark Twain 


Anne Rutledge. 




born. 


1836 Admitted to bar. 


The Gag Law 


Birney's Philan- 


In the legislature ; 


passed in Con- 


thropist founded. 


protests against 


gress. General 


Emerson's Nature. 


resolutions con- 


Conference of the 


Channing joins 


demning abolition- 


M.E. Church 


the antislavery 


ism. Love affair 


debates inter- 


movement. 


with Mary Owens. 


ference with slav- 
ery. Arkansas 
admitted as a 
slave state. 




1837 Settles in Spring- 


Michigan admitted 


Whittier's Poems; 


field, 111. Partner 


as a free state. 


Emerson's The 


of J. T. Stuart. 


Martin Van Buren, 


American Scholar 




Democrat, Presi- 


and Concord 




dent. Financial 


Hymn; Bryant's 




panic. 


The Battle-Field; 
Hawthorne's 
Twice-Told Tales. 
Emerson's first 
speech on Ameri- 
can slavery. 


1838 In the legislature ; 


Mob at Alton, 111. 


Wendell Phillips 


minority candidate 


murders Lovejoy. 


lectures against 


for speaker. 


"Gag resolutions." 


slavery. Whittier 
edits the Pennsyl- 
vania Freeman. 
Lowell graduated 
at Harvard. 


1839 


Prominent aboli- 


Longfellow's Voices 




tionists meet at 


of the Night. 




Warsaw, N. Y., 


Bret Harte born. 




and decide to form 






an independent 






political party. 




1840 Again candidate for 


Birney nominated 


Cooper's The Path- 


speaker Candi- 


for presidency by 


finder. The Dial 


date for presiden- 


Liberty Party. 


founded by 


tial elector on the 


Harrison and 


Emerson and 


Whig ticket. 


Tyler elected. 


others. 



APPENDIX B 



241 



Lincoln's Life 



Stumps the state 
for Harrison. 



American History 



1841 Engagement to 

Mary Todd 
broken. Chal- 
lenged to a duel by 
J. T. Shields. 
Partner to Judge 
S. T. Logan. 
Refuses Whig 
nomination for 
governor. 

1842 Marries Mary Todd 

on November 4. 



1843 Partnership begun 
with W. H. Hern- 
don. 



1844 Candidate for presi- 
dential elector on 
Whig ticket. 
Stumps Illinois 
and Indiana for 
Henry Clay 



(Harrison's death 
put the Southerner 
Tyler in the chair.) 
Split in the na- 
tional Antislav- 
ery Society. 
Democratic plat- 
form denounces 
Abolitionists. 
Frederick 
Douglass mobbed 
in Indiana. New 
York state passes 
"personal liberty" 
law. 



American Literature 



Webster-Ashburton 
treaty with 
Canada to repress 
the slave trade. 

" Personal liberty" 
laws passed by 
Massachusetts 
and Vermont. 



Treaty for annexa- 
tion defeated 
twice by the 
Senate. Platforn 
of Liberty Party 
attacks fugitive 



Brook Farm ex- 
periment begun. 
Emerson's Essays, 
first series. 



Longfellow's 
Poems on Slavery. 
Lanier born. 

Whittier's Massa- 
chusetts to Vir- 
ginia; Lowell's 
Stanzas on Free- 
dom. Henry 
James born. 

Emerson's address 
on Emancipation. 



242 



LINCOLN SELECTIONS 



Lincoln's Life 


American History 


American Literature 






slave provision in 








Constitution. 








Polk of Tennessee, 








Democrat, elected 








President. 




1845 




Bill for annexation 


Lowell's The 






of Texas passed. 


Present Crisis. 






Division in Bap- 








tist Church over 








slavery. Florida 








admitted as a 








slave state. 




1846 


Elected to the 30th 


Mexican War. 


Lowell's Biglow 




Congress. 


Wilmot Proviso 


Papers, first series, 






introduced in 


begun June 17. 






August ; defeated 








by filibuster. 








Iowa admitted as 
a free state. 
Division in M. E. 
Church over 
slavery. 




184J 


In Congress. In- 


Oregon issue. Cal- 


Bryant's Mother 




troduces "Spot 


houn argues that 


of a Mighty Race ; 




Resolutions." 


Congress could 


Emerson's Ode to 






not prohibit 


W. H. Charming; 






slavery in Terri- 


Longfellow's 






tories. Provision 


Evangeline. 






of 1787 incor- 








porated in bill ad- 








mitting Oregon as 








Territory. Penn- 








sylvania passes 








' ' personal liberty ' ' 








laws. 




1848 


In Congress voted 


Peace with Mexico. 


Whittier's The 




for Wilmot Pro- 


Upper California 


Crisis; Lowell's 




viso and Ashmun 


admitted. Wis- 


Biglow Papers, 




Amendment. 


consin admitted 


first series com- 




Introduces bill 


as a free state. 


plete. 




abolishing slavery 


First national 





APPENDIX B 



243 



Lincoln's Life 



in the District of 
Columbia. Presi- 
dential elector on 
Whig ticket. 
Stumps New Eng- 
land for Taylor. 
Declines appoint- 
ment as Territorial 
Governor of 
Oregon. 
Practices law in old 
8th Judicial 
Circuit of Illinois. 



1849 



1850 



1851 



1852 



1853 



1854 



Campaigns for 
Scott. 



Roused by Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill. 
Peoria Speech, 
October 16. 
Elected to Illinois 
legislature. 



American History 



convention of the 
Free Soil Party. 
"Personal liberty " 
laws passed by 
Rhode Island. 
Taylor of Loui- 
siana, Whig, 
elected President. 



California applies 
for entrance as a 
state. 

Clay's Compro- 
mises. Fugitive- 
Slave Bill defied in 
the North. Georgia 
threatens to secede. 
California ad- 
mitted as a free 
state. Slave 
trade abolished 
in District of 
Columbia. 



Death of Clay and 
Webster. 

Pierce of New 
Hampshire, Dem- 
ocrat, inau- 
gurated President 

Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill. Repeal of 
the Missouri 
( 'ompromise. 
Rise of the Re- 
publican Party. 



American Literature 



Death of Poe. 



Whittier's Ichabod; 
Hawthorne's The 
Scarlet Letter. 



Death of Cooper. 
Hawthorne's 
House of the 
Seven Gables. 

Harriet Beecher 
Stowe's Uncle 
Tom's Cabin. 



Thoreau's Wahlcn. 



244 



LINCOLN SELECTIONS 



Lincoln's Life 


American History 


^merican Literature 




Doctrine of 






"Squatter Sov- 






ereignty" comes 






into prominence. 






Emigrant Aid 






Company of 






Massachusetts 


* 




begins sending 






settlers to Kansas. 






' ' Personal liberty ' ' 






laws passed in 






Vermont, Rhode 






Island, and Con- 






necticut. 




1855 Resigns from state 


Topeka Constitu- 


Whittier's Arisen 


legislature to 


tion passed in 


at Last; Long- 


become candidate 


December. "Per- 


fellow's Hiawatha; 


for United States 


sonal liberty" 


Whitman's Leaves 


Senate ; defeated. 


laws passed in 
Maine, Massa- 
chusetts, and 
Michigan. 


of Grass. 


1856 Bloomington speech, 


Guerrilla warfare in 




May 19. Busy 


Kansas ; town of 




with organization 


Lawrence sacked 




of the Republican 


by proslavery 




Party. Candidate 


forces on May 21. 




for presidential 


Sumner assaulted 




elector on the 


in the United 




Republican ticket. 


States Senate on 




Receives 110 votes 


May 22. Bu- 


» 


for vice-presiden- 


chanan of Penn- 




tial nomination in 


sylvania, Dem- 




Republican con- 


ocrat, elected 




vention at Phila- 


President over 




delphia. Cam- 


Fremont, Repub- 




paigns for Fremont. 


lican. 




1857 Springfield address 


Dred Scott decision 


Helper's The Im- 


on the Dred Scott 


announced, March 


pending Crisis. 


decision, June 26. 


6. Lecompton 


The Atlantic 




Convention in 


Monthly founded 




Kansas (October) 


with Lowell as 



APPENDIX B 



245 



Lincoln's Life 



American History 



1858 June 17, "Divided 
House" speech at 
Springfield, ac- 
cepting the Re- 
publican nomina- 
tion to the United 
States Senate. 
Joint debates with 
Douglas, August 
21 to October 15. 



1859 In January the 

Illinois legislature 
elects Douglas to 
the United States 
Senate. Lincoln 
speaks in Ohio in 
September and in 
Kansas in 
December. 



1860 Feb. 27, Cooper 

Union address in 
New York, fol- 
lowed by a speak' 
ing tour in New 
England. Nomi- 
nated for the presi- 
dency by the 
Republican Party 
in May and elected 
in November. 



American Literature 



denounced by 

Douglas 

(December). 

Lecompton Consti- 
tution defeated in 
Kansas. Min- 
nesota admitted 
as a free state. 
' ' Personal liberty ' ' 
laws in Kansas 
and Wisconsin. 
Republicans gain 
in Illinois and 
other states. Bu- 
chanan urges ac- 
quisition of Cuba 
and a protectorate 
overpartof Mexico. 

Kansas forms anti- 
slavery constitu- 
tion. New Mex- 
ico accepts slav- 
ery. Oregon ad- 
mitted as free state. 
"Personal liberty" 
law in Ohio. 
John Brown's 
raid at Harper's 
Ferry, Va., 
October 17. 

Republican Party 
successful in na- 
tional elections. 
On December 14 a 
manifesto for a 
Southern Confed- 
eracy is issued. 
On December 20 
South Carolina 
secedes. 



editor ; publishes 
Holmes' Auto- 
crat of the Break- 
fast Table. 
Longfellow's The 
Courtship of 
Miles Standish. 



Whittier's Brown 
of Ossawatomie. 
Death of Irving. 



Lowell's essay on 
The Election in 
November. 



'246 



LINCOLN SELECTIONS 



TABLE II 
1861-1865 



Lincoln and Political-Military Events 



1861. 
Jan. 8. 


Jan. 

Feb. 


10 
1. 



Feb. 4. 



Feb. 11. 
Feb. 23. 
March 4 
April 12. 
April 14. 
April 15. 


April 17. 
April 19. 


May 6. 
May 12. 


June 8. 
July 4. 


July 21. 
Aug. 30. 



Nov. 1. 



Nov. 8. 
Dee. 3. 



Star of the West fires on Fort 
Sumter. 

Mississippi, Florida. Alabama, 

Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas 
secede. 

( "(invention meets in Montgom- 
ery, Ala., to frame the Con- 
federate government. 

Lincoln leaves Springfield. 

Lincoln reaches Washington. 

Lincoln inaugurated. 

Fort Sumter attacked. 

Fort Sumter surrenders. 

Lincoln issues call for 75,000 
volunteers. 

Virginia secedes. 

Lincoln declares Southern ports 
blockaded. 

Arkansas secedes. 

Great Britain recognizes Con- 
federate States as bellig- 
erents. 

Tennessee secedes. 

Lincoln calls ( Jongress to special 
session. 

Northern defeat at Bull Run. 

Fremont's Missouri emancipa- 
tion proclamation. 

Lincoln appoints MeC'lcllan to 
command of all the Union 
armies. 

Mason and Slidell seized. 

Lincoln's message to Congress. 



American Literature i 



Lowell : — The Question 
of the Hour (January), 
E. Pluribus Unum 
(February), The Piek- 
ens-and- Stealings Re- 
bellion (June), The 
Washers of the Shroud* 
(November), Mason 
and Slidell*, Biglow 
Papers*, second series, 
number 2 (written in 
December). 

Holmes : — Brolher Jona- 
than* Lament* (May), 
Army Hymn* (June), 
Parting Hymn* (Au- 
gust), Union and 
Liberty* (December). 

T. Winthrop: — The 
New York Seventh 
Regiment (June) , Wash- 
ington as a Cant)) 
(July). 

C. F. Adams, Jr. : — The 
Reign of King Cotton 
(April). 

T. W. Higginson : — The 
Ordeal by Battle (July). 

C. E. Norton : — The 
Advantages of Defeat 
(September) . 



1 Unless otherwise indicated the date of publication is given. 
Poems are marked with asterisks. 



APPENDIX B 



247 



Lincoln and Political-Military Events 



Dec. 25. 

1862. 
Jan. 13. 



Lincoln orders the return of 
Mason and Slidell. 



American Literature 



Fob. 
Feb. 



6. 

16. 



Lincoln appoints Stanton Secre- 
tary of War and sends special 
message to Congress recom- 
mending gradual compen- 
sated emancipation. 

Grant takes Fort Henry. 

Grant receives "unconditional 
surrender" of Fort Donelson. 

McClellan's unsuccessful Penin- 
sular Campaign. 

Victory of the Monitor over the 
Merrimac. 

Grant's victory of Shiloh. 

Slavery abolished in District of 
Columbia. 

Farragut takes New Orleans. 

Confederates abandon Corinth. 

Confederates surrender Mem- 
phis. 

Union defeat at Cedar Moun- 
tain. 
Aug- 29-30. Union defeat at second 

battle of Bull Run (Manassas) , 

Battle of Antietam, somewhat 
indecisive victory for Union 
forces. 

Lincoln issues preliminary proc- 
lamation of emancipation. 

Lincoln recommends to Con- 
gress gradual compensated 
emancipation ; puts Burnside 
in command of Union armies. 

Union defeat under Burnside at 
Fredericksburg. 



March- 
July. 
March 9. 

April 6-7 
April 16. 

April 25. 
May 30. 
June 6. 

Aug. 5. 



Sept. 17, 



Sept. 22. 



Dec. 1. 



Dec. 13. 



1863. 
Jan. 1. 

Jan. 26. 



Lincoln issues formal emancipa- 
tion proclamation. 

Lincoln appoints Hooker to 
command. 



Lowell : — Biglow Papers*, 
second series (begin- 
ning in January). 

Holmes : — Voyage of I he 
Good Ship Union* 
(March), My Hunt 
after ''The Captain' " 
(December). 

Whittier: — In War- 
Time* (August), The 
Battle Autumn of 1862* 
(October), The Wait- 
ing*, The Watchers*. 

Emerson : — The Presi- 
dent's Proclamation 
(November). 

Hawthorne: — Chiefly 
about War-Matters 

(July). 

J. W. Howe: — Battle 
Hymn of the Republic* 
(February). 

Whitman : — Nurses his 
brother, wounded at 
Fredericksburg 
(December). 



Lowell : — Biglow Papers*, 
second series, number 

7 (February). 



248 



LINCOLN SELECTIONS 



Lincoln and Political-Military Events 



March. Congress authorizes Lincoln to 

suspend the writ of Habeas 

Corpus in certain cases ; 

passes Draft Act. 
May 3. Hooker defeated at Chancellors- 

ville ; ' ' Stonewall ' ' Jackson 

killed. 
June 27. Lincoln appoints Meade to 

command. 
July 1-3. Union victory at Gettysburg 

under Meade. 
July 4. Grant captures Vicksburg. 
July 13-16. Draft riots in New York City. 
Sept. 19-20. Union defeat at Chicka- 

mauga. 
Nov. 19. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. 
Nov. 24-25. Grant wins battles of Lookout 

Mountain and Missionary 

Ridge. 
Dec. 8. Lincoln's message to Congress 

and Proclamation of Amnesty. 
1864. 
March 12. Lincoln appoints Grant com- 
mander-in-chief. 
May 5-12. Grant wins battles of the 

"Wilderness. 
June 7. Lincoln renominated ^*or the 

Presidency at Baltimore. 
5. Farragut's victory at Mobile. 
2. Sherman takes Atlanta. 
8. Lincoln reelected President. 
15-16. Union victory under Thomas 

at Nashville. 
Sherman takes Savannah. 



Aug. 
Sept 
Nov. 
Dec. 



oo 



Dec 

1865 
Feb. 1. 



Feb. 17. 
March 4. 
April 1. 



Thirteenth Amer dment passed 
in Congress. Hampton Roads 
peace conference. 

Sherman enters Charleston. 

Lincoln's second inaugural. 

Sheridan wins battle of Five 
Forks. 



American Literature 



Whittier: — The Proc- 
lamation* (February), 
Barbara Frietchie* 

(October). 

Emerson : — Boston 
Hymn* (February), 
Voluntaries* (October) . 

E. E. Hale : — The Man 
without a Country 
(December). 



Lowell : — Essays on The 
Rebellion, McClellan or 
Lincoln, and Abrahayn 
Lincoln. 

Holmes : — The Last 
Charge* (February). 



Lowell : — Commemora- 
tion Ode* (read at 
Harvard on July 21). 

Whittier : — Laus Deo*. 

Whitman : — O Captain ! 
My Captain*, When 
Lilacs Last in the 



APPENDIX B 



249 



Lincoln 


'•and Political-Military Events 


American Literature 


April 3. 


Richmond surrenders. 


Dooryard Blooni'd*, 


April 4. 


Lincoln enters Richmond. 


and Drum Taps*. 


April 9. 


Lee surrenders at Appomatox 


Bryant : — Abraham 




Court House. 


Lincoln*. 


April 14. 


Lincoln shot in Ford's Theater 


Emerson : — Address on 




at 10.20 p.m. 


Abraham Lincoln. 


April 15. 


Death of Lincoln at 7.22 a.m. 




May 4. 


Lincoln buried in Springfield, 






111. 


- 



APPENDIX C 

Class Room Suggestions 

I 

FOR CLASSES IN ARGUMENTATION OR DEBATE 

A. Study Chiefly of Structure 

THE COOPER UNION ADDRESS 

Outline the Cooper Union Address. What is accomplished 
in the introductory paragraphs? In the body of the address 
what are the thre^ main divisions? Discuss Lincoln's use of 
evidence. In what does its strength consist? How does he 
use his conclusions regarding the attitude of the fathers, in 
refuting charges brought by the South against the Republican 
Party? What charges are refuted, and what are the methods 
of refutation? In the third main division, what advice does 
Lincoln offer to his own party? With the statement of what 
moral issue does he conclude the address? What would be the 
probable effect of the conclusion upon his audience? 

B. Study Chiefly of Reasoning 

THE FIRST LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 
DOUGLAS'S SPEECH 

Find and explain the following fallacies in paragraphs in- 
dicated : 

I. Begging the question 

A. By mere assumption, paragraphs 2, 4. 

B. By epithet, paragraphs 5, 6, 9, 12. 

C. By assumption of a suppressed premise, paragraph 6 

(in the passage about the Mexican War). 

D. By use of assumption for proof, .paragraph 8. 

250 



APPENDIX C 251 

II. Ambiguous terms, paragraphs 4, 11. 

III. False cause 

A. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, paragraph 13. 

IV. Division, paragraph 6. 
V. Ignoring the question 

A. By arguing beside the point, paragraph 10. 

B. By argumentum ad hominem, paragraph 6. 

C. By argumentum ad populum, paragraph 11. 

Point out the weakness in Douglas's argument from analogy 
in paragraph 10. How would Douglas define "submit" and 
" citizenship" in paragraph 11 ? " inferior race" in paragraph 12? 
Into what dilemma does Douglas fall in the last sentence of 
paragraph 12? 

LINCOLN'S SPEECH 

Where does Lincoln shift the burden of proof? Is he justi- 
fied? Does he support his own affirmative charges with ade- 
quate evidence? In paragraph 6 (of Douglas's speech) Douglas 
tries to catch Lincoln in a dilemma. *How does Lincoln avoid 
the dilemma? How much of Douglas's Argumentum ad homi- 
nem does Lincoln think deserving of refutation? What would 
he lose by attempting complete refutation? Compare the 
attitude of Douglas toward his audience with that of Lincoln. 
In what ways do they attempt to win the sympathy of their 
audience? See especially paragraphs 12, 13, 21. In paragraphs 
7, 8, 9, 10 how does Lincoln meet Douglas's misinterpretation 
of the words " A house divided against itself cannot stand"? 
What fallacious assumptions of Douglas's does he expose? To 
what theory of Douglas's does Lincoln apply the reductio ad 
absurdum in paragraph 10? 

Turning to direct attack what charge does Lincoln make in 
paragraph 11? What evasion by Douglas does Lincoln point 
out in paragraph 12? In paragraphs 12 and 13 Lincoln's argu- 
ment halts while he employs irony, narrative, and humorous 
phraseology. Can you suggest reasons for these tactics in the 
mental state of his audience? In paragraphs 14 and 15 Lincoln 
uses the argument from effect to effect, which may be represented 
graphically as follows : 



252 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

Present effect Probable cause 




Probable future effect 

State the present effect, the probable cause, and the probable 
future effect. In paragraph 16 what evasion of Douglas's docs 
Lincoln expose? In paragraphs 17, 18, 19, 20 Lincoln makes 
Douglas a witness against himself. How effective is such testi- 
mony? In paragraph 22 how does Lincoln attack Douglas's 
tenacious adherence to the Dred Scott decision? What is 
Lincoln's appeal in his concluding paragraph? 

C. Study of Persuasion 
THE BLOOMINGTON ADDRESS 

In the study of this address have clearly in mind (a) the occa- 
sion, (6) the character of the audience, (c) Lincoln's relation 
with the audience. 

Characterize the style of the opening paragraph and criticize 
the paragraph as an approach to the audience. In paragraphs 
2 and 3 what mood does Lincoln seek to establish in his audience? 
Compare the style of this with the style of paragraph 1. What 
general principles of political morality does Lincoln enunciate 
in paragraphs 3 and 4? How would the statement of these 
principles be likely to affect his audience? In paragraph 5 
Lincoln attempts to unite the discordant elements in his audience 
for a single cause. How does he do this? How do you account 
for the applause? What justification has a speaker for such an 
appeal to fear as is found in paragraphs 6 and 7? Was Lincoln 
justified? To what sentiments does he appeal in paragraph 8? 
It will be observed throughout his speeches that Lincoln con- 
tinually mentions the Declaration of Independence. Would 
reference to that document have so strong an appeal to-day? 
Can you give an example of such appeal in a recent speech? 
Study the vocabulary of paragraph 10 for its probable effect 
upon the feelings. In paragraph 11 how does Lincoln manage 



APPENDIX C 253 

to stir the indignation of the audience? In what other instances 
in this speech docs he attempt to undermine the reputation of 
Douglas? Discuss the effect of such a series of questions as is 
found in paragraph 12. In paragraphs 13 and 14 note the 
appeal to precedent and the conjuring with great names. Why 
does Lincoln say ''old Massachusetts''? In the humor of 
paragraphs 16, 17, and 18, is Lincoln stooping to his audience? 
Observe how he meets interruptions in paragraphs 18, 19, and 21. 
In public speaking, what is the particular effectiveness of a good 
rejoinder to an interruption? Is the rejoinder in paragraph 19 
too abrupt? Note how many of Lincoln's paragraphs end with 
a question. For what purpose does he use the concluding sen- 
tence in paragraph 20? Note the appeal to local pride at the 
opening of the same paragraph. In paragraphs 21 and 22 does 
Lincoln gain anything by expanding points previously made? 
In the opening of paragraph 24 how does he attempt to mollify 
the radical Abolitionists in his audience? What proportion does 
the logic in the paragraph bear to the emotional appeal? Dis- 
cuss the rhetoric of paragraphs 25 and 26. Note the Biblical 
quotations in paragraph 27. Can you find other examples of 
direct or indirect quotation of the Bible in this speech? In 
paragraph 28 comment on Lincoln's use of a striking phrase and 
of a concrete illustration. Which part of paragraph 30 is more 
likely to impress the audience, — the humorous epithets or 
the serious evidence? Is the combination effective? Point out 
the figures of speech (tropes) in paragraph 31 and tell in what 
ways they are superior to literal statement. Why did paragraph 
34 appear to the audience the "climax" of the speech? What 
is the temper and what the purpose of the concluding 
paragraph ? 

After reviewing the entire speech discuss (a) Lincoln's purpose, 
(6) the motives to which he appeals, (c) his methods of impressing 
tha imagination, (d) the amount of emotional appeal compared 
with the amount of evidence and reasoning. Lincoln's enemies 
charged that he employed vulgar appeals in his speeches, relying 
too much upon the force of humor and his extraordinary ability 
to tell a story. What appeals of the kind do you find in the 
present address? Compare Lincoln's oratorical methods in 
this speech with those employed in the Cooper Union Address 
and in the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate. 



254 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

II 

FOR CLASSES IN COMPOSITION 

A. Topics from Which Theme Subjects May Be Derived 

Lincoln's Birthplace ; The Life of a Pioneer ; The Middle 
West of Lincoln's Day ; The Pioneer in Politics ; The Early 
Abolitionists ; Famous American Negroes ; Bleeding Kansas ; 
The Border Ruffians; Lincoln and Children; Lincoln's Educa- 
tion and Thoughts on Education ; Lincoln's Attitude toward 
Negro Emancipation; Lincoln at Home; Lincoln's Humor; 
Lincoln's Friends; Lincoln and his Generals; The Lincoln- 
Shields Duel ; Lincoln's Cabinet ; Lincoln and Labor ; Famous 
Statues of Lincoln ; Lincoln Memorials. 

B. A Study of Lincoln's Letters 

Find in Lincoln's letters one or two examples of each of the 
following merits : clarity, brevity, tact, courtesy, modesty, 
generosity, sympathy, force, simplicity, candor. 

C. A Study of Lincoln's Rhetoric 

Observe Lincoln's use of figurative language, his use of humor, 
his use of the rhetorical question, his use of quotation, his use 
of homely diction, his use of balanced sentence-structure (e.g., 
in the Letter to Greeley). How does he ornament his style? 
What makes the style interesting? To what extent does his 
style reveal his character? 

Ill 
FOR CLASSES IN HISTORY 

A. Lincoln's Political Ideals 

(1) Which principle did Lincoln consider of greater importance, 
that 'of federal union or that of states' rights? What great 
political leaders before Lincoln had championed these two 
principles? In what historical documents are these principles 
enunciated? Compare the attitude of Lincoln toward union 
with that of Washington, Jefferson, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, 
W. L. Garrison, and Douglas. 



APPEXDIX C 255 

(2) Whence did Lincoln derive his idea of the natural rights 
of man? Compare his ideal regarding this matter with the ideals 
of Jefferson and of Douglas. 

(3) How much of Lincoln's faith in the "plain people" did he 
derive from a political tradition and how much from his own 
experience? In which of his writings does he express his three 
ideals of union, natural rights, and faith in the people? How 
much of his success as a statesman resulted from his adherence 
to these ideals, and how much from his personal traits, such as 
magnanimity, sympathy, and candor? Compare Lincoln in 
this respect with Roosevelt and Wilson. 

B. Lincoln and the Slavery Issue 

With which of Lincoln's political ideals did the institution of 
slavery conflict? What is the nature of his first utterance on 
the slavery issue? What bearing had the Mexican War on the 
extension of slavery? What was Lincoln's attitude toward this 
war? Why did he support the Wilmot Proviso? Why did he 
approve the Compromise of 1850 with its Fugitive Slave Law? 
Why did the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854 rouse him to political 
action? In the Peoria Speech what did Lincoln say regarding 
negro emancipation, the extension of slavery, and negro political 
rights? (See excerpts from the speech and quotation in the first 
Lincoln-Douglas debate.) State Douglas's theory of popular 
sovereignty. How did Lincoln attack this theory? How was 
slavery involved in the Illinois senatorial contest of 1858? 
What did Lincoln think of John Brown ? How does the Cooper 
Union Speech summarize Lincoln's attitude toward slavery in 
the campaign of 1860? What pronouncement regarding slavery 
do you find in the First Inaugural? At the outbreak of war 
why did not Lincoln favor immediate emancipation? What 
purpose did he have in suggesting compensated emancipation? 
Trace the later developments of his emancipation program. 
Did he change his opinion with regard to political and social 
equality for the negroes? 

C. Lincoln and Political Parties 

What were the principles of the Whig Party? In what parties 
were the opponents of slavery to be found before the formation 



256 LINCOLN SELECTIONS 

of the Republican Party? Why did they not unite under a 
•single party standard? Was Lincoln an Abolitionist? How 
do you account for the disappearance of the Whig Party ? From 
what political organizations did the Republican Party recruit its 
membership ? What purpose united it ? What part did Lincoln 
play in founding the party? Lpon what grounds did the Re- 
publican and Democratic parties clash in the elections of 1856, 
1858. and 1860? How were Lincoln and Douglas involved in 
the division of the Democratic Party (1858-1860) ? Give reasons 
for the nomination of Lincoln in 1860. Discuss the various 
nominees and their platforms. What was the position of the 
Northern Democrats after the outbreak of war? What was the 
political complexion of Lincoln's cabinet? What difficulties did 
Lincoln have with the leaders in his own party? Did he show 
political partisanship during the war? Did he accept the " spoils 
system"? What w^ere the rival political platforms of 1864? 

A SHORT READING LIST 

Nicolay and Hay : The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. 

12 vols. The Lamb Publishing Company, New York, 1905. 
Lapsley, A. B. : The Writings of Abraham Lincoln. 8 vols. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1905. 

(Of these two editions the second has an advantage in paper 
and printing. Both are well edited.) 
Nicolay and Hay : Abraham Lincoln : A History. 10 vols. 
The Century Company. New York, 1890. 

(An authoritative life by Lincoln's private secretaries.) 
Tarbell, Ida M. : The Life of Abraham Lincoln. 2 vols. Double- 
day and McClure Company, New York, 1900. 

(A thoroughly good account of Lincoln which adds a con- 
siderable amount of information to that given in Nicolay and 
Hay. i 
Whitlock, Brand: Abraham Lincoln. Small, Maynard and 
Company, Boston, 1916. 

(The best of the short biographies.) 
Schurz, Carl: Abraham Lincoln, an Essay. Houghton, Mifflin 
and Company, Boston. 1891. 

(Published in the Riverside Literature Series. Widely 
known.) 



APPEXDIX C 257 

Lowell, J. R. : Abraham Lincoln. 

(An essay originally published in the Xorth American Re- 
view in 1865. Accessible in any edition of Lowell. Still the 
best essay upon the subject.) 

Hill, Frederick T. : Lincoln the Lawyer. The Century Company. 
New York, 1906. 

Carpenter, F. B. : Six Months at the White House. Hurd and 
Houghton. New York. 1866. 

i Intimate views of Lincoln by the artist who saw him day 
by day while working on his portrait.) 

Charnwood, G. R. B., 1st Baron: Abraham Lincoln. Henry 
Holt and Company. Xew York. 1916. 
(An Englishman's view of Lincoln. > 

Bergold, Lilian C. : Abraham Lincoln Centennial; a collection 
of authentic stories, with poems, songs, and programs, for the 
boys, girls, and teachers of elementary schools. Educational 
Publishing Company, Boston, Xew York, etc., 1908. 

Wright-Davis, (Mrs.) Mary: The Book of Lincoln. George H. 
Dor an, Xew York, 1919. 

(A good collection of poems inspired by Lincoln's life and 
character.) 

Meserve, Frederick Hill: The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln. 
Privately printed. Xew York, 1911. 



INDEX 



Acquisition of territory, 106 

Admission of slave states, 107 

Addresses, 

to people of Sangamon County, 

13 
before Springfield Washing- 
tonian Temperance Society, 
16 
at Peoria, 111., 20 
Bloomington Speech, 25 
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 59 
Cooper Union Address, 117 
Farewell Address, Springfield, 

111., 150 
at Indianapolis, Ind., 151 
to German Club of Cincinnati, 

Ohio, 152 
at Pittsburg, Pa., 153 
in Independence Hall, 153 
First Inaugural Address, 155 
Reply to a Committee, 183 
Gettysburg Address, 203 
Opinion on Property, 205 
at Baltimore, 209 
to 166th Ohio Regiment, 212 
Reply to a Serenade, 213 
Second Inaugural Address, 215 
Last Public Address, 219 

Alton, speech at, 112 

American party, 227 

Andrew, Governor, telegram to, 
180 

Anti-Nebraska, 26 

Autobiography, 1 

Baltimore, address at, 209 
Benton, Tom, 32 



Birth of Lincoln, 1 
Bissell, Colonel, 58 
Bixby, Mrs., letter to, 214 
Bloomington Speech, 25 

study of, 252 
"Blue lodges," 53 
Bogus laws, 42 
Boone, Daniel, 40 
"Border ruffians," 42 
Brady's photograph, 117 
Brooks, Preston, 35 
Brown, John, 137 
Brown, J. U., letter to, 113 
Browning, Orville H., 42 
Bryant, William Cullen, 117 
Buchanan, James, 88 

Capital, Labor and, 172 
Chase, Salmon P., 64 
Choate, Rufus, 33 
Chronological tables, 236 
Cincinnati, speech at, 152 
Clay, Henry, 40 
Codding, Ichabod, 39 
Compensated emancipation, mes- 
sage regarding, 175 
Composition, for classes in, 253 
Compromise of 1850, 62, 227 
Congress, messages to, 

People's Contest, 170 

Labor and Capital, 172 

Compensated Emancipation, 175 
Conkling, James C, letter to, 

196 
Classroom suggestions, 250 
Cooper Union Address, 117 

study of, 250 

59 



260 



INDEX 



Davis, Jefferson, 58 
Debates, Lincoln-Douglas, 59 
Definition of Democracy, 58 
Definition of Liberty, 209 
Democracy, definition of, 58 

effect of slavery on, 22 
Democratic party, 228 
Democratic and Republican Parties 

115 
District of Columbia, 108 
Douglas, Stephen, opening speech 
in first Lincoln-Douglas de- 
bate, 61 
Douglass, Frederick, 64 
Drake, C. D., letter to, 202 
Dred Scott case, 71, 86, 229 

Early life, 2 
Education, of Lincoln, 4 

Lincoln's opinions on, 13 
Effect of Slavery on Democracy, 22 
Effect of Slavery on the Union, 23 
Eldridge House, burning of, 47 
Emancipation, message regarding 
compensated, 175 

reply to a committee regarding, 
183 

proclamation, 189 

constitutionality of, 198 
Emigrant Aid Company, 28 
English bill. See Lecompton Con- 
stitution. 

Farewell Address, 150 
First Inaugural Address, 155 
First Political Announcement, 13 
Franklin, Benjamin, 127 
Freeport, speech at, 104 
Freeport Doctrine, 1 1 1 
Free Soil party, 230 
Fugitive-Slave law, 231 

German Club of Cincinnati, ad- 
dress to, 152 



Gettysburg Address, 203 
Giddings, Joshua R., 64 
Glossary of political terms, 227 
Grant, U. S., letter to, 194, 210 

telegram to, 211, 212 
Greeley, Horace, letter to, 181 
Gunpowder plot, 140 

Hackett, James H., letter to, 195 

Harper's Ferry, 137 

Hayti, slave revolution in, 140 

Helper, Hinton, 142 

History, for classes in, 254 

Hodges, A. G., letter to, 205 

Hooker, General J., letter to, 193 

Independence Hall, speech in, 153 
Indianapolis, speech at, 151 
Issue, The Great, 112 

Jefferson, Thomas, festival in 
honor of, 115 
quoted by Lincoln, 140 
Jonesboro, speech at, 111 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, 20, 231 
Know-Nothings, 32, 227 

Labor and Capital, 172 
Last Public Address, 219 
Law lecture, notes for a, 18 
Lawrence, Kansas, 28 
Lecompton Constitution, 97, 232 
Letters, 

to editor of "The Journal," 14 

to J. U. Brown, 113 

to H. L. Pierce, 115 

to Gen. G. B. McClellan, 175, 
179 

to Horace Greeley, 181 

to Carl Schurz, 187 

to Gen. J. Hooker, 193 

to Gen. U. S. Grant, 194, 210 

to James H. Hackett, 195 



INDEX 



261 



Letters — continued 

to James C. Conkling, 196 

to C. D. Drake, 202 

to A. G. Hodges, 205 

to Mrs. Horace Mann, 209 

to Mrs. Bixby, 214 

to Thurlow Weed, 218 
Liberia, colonization in, 79 
Liberty, definition of, 209 
Liberty party, 233 
Lincoln and Red Tape, 180 
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 

dates and places held, 59 

synopsis, 60 

first debate, 61 

Douglas' Opening Speech, 61 

Lincoln's Reply, 75 

Questions and Answers, 104 

Lincoln's Fifth Question, 111 

The Great Issue, 112 

study of, 250 
"Lost Speech," 26 
L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 140 
Louisiana, government of, 221 
Lovejoy, Owen, 39, 64 

Mann. Mrs. Horace, letter to, 
209 

Marriage of Lincoln, 10 

McClellan, Gen. G. B., letter to, 
175, 179 

Messages to Congress. See Con- 
gress, messages to 

Messages to General Grant, 210 

Mexican War, Lincoln's- attitude 
toward, 11 

Missouri Compromise, 233 

Morris, Gouverneur, 127 

Napoleon, Louis, Orsini's attempt 
on, 141 

Nebraska bill. See Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill 

Xotes for a Law Lecture, 18 



Ohio regiment, address to, 212 
Opinion on Property, 205 
Ordinance of 1787, 52 
Orsini, 141 
Ottawa, speech at, 61 

Paine, Thomas, 71 

Parentage of Lincoln, 1 

People's Contest, The, 170 

Peoria Speech, 20 

Petition of children regarding 

emancipation, 209 
Pettit, John, 32 
Pierce, Franklin, 48 
Pierce, H. L., letter to, 115 
Pittsburg, speech at, 153 
Policies of Government, 151 
Political Announcement, 13 

Another, 14 
Political terms, glossary of, 227 
Popular sovereignty, 54, 233 
Property, opinion on, 205 

Quakers, petition of, 37 
Questions and Answers, 104 

Reading list, 256 
Red Tape, Lincoln and, 180 
Reeder, Andrew, 41 
Reply to a Chicago Committee re- 
garding Emancipation, 183 
Reply to a Serenade, 213 
Republican party, 234 
Robinson, Governor, 50 

Sangamon County, address at, 

13 
Schurz, Carl, letter to, 187 
Second Inaugural Address, 215 
Serenade, reply to a, 213 
Shakespeare's plays, opinion re- 
garding, 195 
Shields, Gen. James. 70 



262 



INDEX 



Slavery, 

As a Moral Issue, 21 
Effect on Democracy, 22 
Effect on the Union, 22 
Lincoln's position regarding, 
113 
Southampton insurrection, 139 
Springfield, address at, 16, 150 
Speeches. See Addresses 
Speech in Independence Hall, 

153 
Speech at Peoria, 20 
Squatter sovereignty. See Popular 

sovereignty 
Summary of Lincoln's Position re- 
garding Slavery, 113 
Sumner, Charles, 35 



Taney, Roger, 88 
Tarbell, Ida, on Lincoln, 26, 59 
Temperance Revolution, The, 16 
Thomas, Jesse B., 43 
Trumbull, Judge Lyman, 36 
Turner, Nat, 139 

Union, effect of slavery on, 23 
Union, Washington, 95 

Washington, George, Lincoln on, 

17 
Washington, address at, 155 
Weed, Thurlow, letter to, 218 
Whig party, 234 
Wilmot Proviso, 68, 235 
Woman's suffrage, 15 



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